“By Jove! there are the rabbits,” said Frank, levelling his gun.
“Jeerusalem! so they air,” exclaimed Mr Lathrope. “Dew let me hev the first shot!”
“All right; fire away!” replied Mr Meldrum, who was ready to aim at a couple of the little creatures that were sitting up on a fragment of rock right opposite the three sportsmen, apparently combing their whiskers and eyeing them curiously the while. So near were they, indeed, that the most unskilful marksman in the world could hardly have missed them.
“Here goes, mister!” ejaculated Mr Lathrope, pulling the trigger of his piece with as strong an effort as if he were wrenching back a gate-post. “I guess you’ll soon see the fur fly.”
Instead of this, however, the phenomenon was witnessed of the fragments of the rifle dispersing in all directions the moment it was discharged, the American being at the same time knocked backward to the ground by the kick of the weapon, which went off with a loud report.
“You’re not hurt, I hope?” asked Mr Meldrum, who with Frank had at once hurried to the American’s side and taken hold of his hand to raise him up.
“No, I guess not,” replied Mr Lathrope slowly, getting up on to his feet and proceeding to feel himself carefully all over. “No, I ain’t hurt; but I feels flummuxed by the durned old shootin’-iron. I kalkerlate my grandfather was a fraud, and took me in on that job. I would ha’ betted my bottom dollar on the weppin, and now it ain’t worth a cent!”
There was a pretty good laugh round at “Colonel Crockett’s rifle,” and what it had brought down, but the American took it all with very good temper. After that, Mr Meldrum and Frank handing him their guns alternately, so that they all three could have a fair number of shots apiece, they managed to make a very good bag out of the rabbits, which were not in the least dismayed either by the bursting of the rifle in the first instance, or by the rapid disappearance of their companions subsequently, although each discharge of the sportsmen’s guns laid many of them low.
Indeed, they might have shot the lot had not Mr Meldrum observed that they had secured enough; besides which, the two sailors who accompanied the party said they could not cram any more into the sacks they had brought. Thereupon all set about counting the spoil, and found that they had bagged no less than sixty-three brace.
These, with five wild ducks—Mr Lathrope bringing down a pair right and left, on their way back, in a fashion which amply retrieved his character as a shot, and Frank securing the odd one—were the nett result of the day’s sport, in addition to the little sheathbill; and the shooting party returned to the house under the cliff as well satisfied with their own prowess as the home party were to welcome them, especially as they were now so plentifully provided with what all had been longing for since the last sheep had been washed overboard the Nancy Bell when she was off the Cape—fresh-meat!