The pigeon has a coo that is as monotonous and far-reaching as a fog horn. For this sound the boys are now cocking their ears. Presently the loved note reaches Sandy's ears: coo—coo—coo!
"A wonga for a dollar, and where's one is sure to be another."
To locate a pigeon by its note is often a most difficult thing in the scrub. It may be on the tree under which one happens to be standing, or hundreds of yards away. To run down a pigeon by its note is a work that needs experience and patience.
Sandy listened intently, mind as well as ears working. "Not high up, that's certain. Seems to be right behind me. Bet tuppence he's on that white cedar," said the boy to himself after a further scrutiny in the supposed direction. Away in the locality indicated, distant a hundred yards or so, rising above a clump of myrtles, was a white cedar tree, its shining yellow berries revealing its presence as seen through the tree boles and shrubs.
Stealthily moving through the undergrowth and timber, the lad cautiously advanced towards the cedar. Gaining the myrtle cluster, he was thereby screened to some extent even when viewed from above. Just then a coo gave him the location. Moving to the edge of the saplings, he now got a fair view of the tree beyond; and there, on a lateral limb, distant from him not more than thirty-five yards, sat a glorious wonga-wonga, the finest species of Australian pigeon, not to be beaten for table purposes throughout the wide world. The specimen before Sandy was a male bird as big as three ordinary pigeons.
"That fellow's calling his mate, and she's not far off, by the way he's noddin' his head," surmised the youth. "Shall I pot him, or wait for his mate and cop 'em both?"
The question was soon settled, for suddenly, and with a great whirr, the hen rose from the ground, or rather, tiny water pool: for she had been drinking and bathing and admiring her reflected image in the glassy water. Her return, alas! is the signal of death, for what time she alighted on the bough at her spouse's side, the remorseless hunter, with hasty but true aim, brought both fluttering to the ground.
Their necks are wrung and they are bagged instanter, with a laconic but satisfied grunt from the sportsman: "Not so bad."
At this moment a double shot broke on Sandy's ears. This was immediately followed by a deep, mellow sound that formed the common signal of the pals. Putting his two hands with hollowed palms together, conch-shell fashion, the boy raised them to his lips and blew a prolonged and resonant note followed by three short notes staccato, which conveyed to the other's ears the answer: "Heard you, am coming."
"Joe wants me for something. Got into a covey of bronze-wings, or maybe a mob o' flocks," muttered the lad as he made in the direction of the sound.