He soon freed himself; but the tingling, poisonous nature of their bites was still very evident, and excited an intense desire to rub and scratch.
“Why, there’s quite a regiment of the little vicious wretches!” cried the boy as he was going back to where his gun stood by the tree. “I suppose they smelt me.”
It seemed so for the moment, for a long line of the ants could be traced through the grass on and on; and then Nic uttered an exclamation, sprang forward and caught up his specimen, to hold it at arm’s length and begin shaking it.
“Why, it’s covered with them,” he cried, as he swept them off, got them on his hands, saw them racing up his arms, and found them so quick and so tight-clinging that the task grew painful in the extreme before he could get rid of them, and when he did he tossed the rumpled, disfigured bird back amongst his enemies.
“There!” he cried: “eat it then. It’s completely spoiled. What a pity I did not let it live!”
“Never mind, Nic,” said his father that evening, as he sat at home, giving himself from time to time a vicious rub. “Take it as a lesson. We all have to go through that sort of thing, and you’ll know better next time. But it was a fine specimen, you say?”
“Lovely,” replied Nic eagerly; but he did not say a word about who shot the bird, for he felt that if he did his father would be annoyed.