"See these blocks of fine marble and those superb masses of porphyry and chalcedony,—but there's something which will interest you more. Take my gun and see if you can't bring down a bird for supper."
Wild ducks were flying low across the edge of the glacier and quite near to the boys, and Ted grasped his father's gun in wild excitement. He was never allowed to touch a gun at home. Dearly as he loved his mother, it had always seemed very strange to him that she should show such poor taste about firearms, and refuse to let him have any; and now that he had a gun really in his hands, he could hardly hold it, he was so excited. Of course it was not the first time, for his father had allowed him to practise shooting at a mark ever since they had reached Alaska, but this was the first time he had tried to shoot a living target. He selected his duck, aimed quickly, and fired. Bang! Off went the gun, and, wonder of wonders! two ducks fell instead of one.
"Well done, Ted, that duck was twins," cried his father, laughing, almost as excited as the boy himself, and they ran to pick up the birds. Kalitan smiled, too, and quietly picked up one, saying:
"This one Kalitan's," showing, as he spoke, his arrow through the bird's side, for he had discharged an arrow as Ted fired his gun.
"Too bad, Ted. I thought you were a mighty hunter, a Nimrod who killed two birds with one stone," said Mr. Strong, but Ted laughed and said:
"So I got the one I shot at, I don't care."
They had wild duck at supper that night, for Chetwoof plucked the birds and roasted them on a hot stone over the spruce logs, and Ted, tired and wet and hungry, thought he had never tasted such a delicious meal in his life.