CHAPTER XVIII.
RABBIT HUNTING.
Standing amid the clustered alders which lined the banks of an ice-bound stream that flowed through a little valley, Rodney Grant listened with a tingling thrill to the musical baying of a hound running a rabbit. Rouser had struck a scent, and now, after circling some distance into the deeper woods, the sound of his voice, growing more and more distinct, indicated that he was coming back. Holding Lem Sawyer’s gun ready for use, Rod changed his position somewhat, in order to get a better view through a little break or opening in the alders. The snow crunched softly beneath his feet, and a few light, feathery flakes, dislodged as he brushed against the bushes, floated down around him. A chickadee, undisturbed by the baying of the dog or the presence of the boy near at hand, performed some amazing evolutions amid the branches a few feet away, keeping up the while a constant friendly chatter in a ludicrously hoarse and husky tone. Up the bank behind Rod, some distance to the right, the snow crunched a little and a dark figure appeared at the edge of the spruces.
“’St! ’st!” came a double hiss of warning. “Watch out, Grant! He’s coming! He’s coming! You may see him first.”
It was Spotty, who had sought a more favorable position, only to be led back that way by the baying of the dog. Lander had gone still farther up stream.
Hearing the hound coming in full tongue, Rod did not even turn his head, but crouched a bit to peer through the opening down which the dog’s voice floated from the shadowy woods beyond the stream. His eyes were keen for the first glimpse of the running rabbit, and his finger was ready for the trigger.
Whit-ker-whit—whirr!
Spotty, moving again, had sent a partridge out from beneath the shelter of some low-hanging evergreens. With a gasp, he swung half round and blazed away, almost blindly, at the flitting bird, which went soaring over the alders toward the cover of the dense woods beyond the stream. He knew he had missed, even as he fired.
Grant, straightening up as if jerked by an electric shock, saw the brown bird flash against a bit of gray sky. There was no time to bring the butt of the gun to his shoulder. He fired, seemingly without taking aim, and the partridge crashed down through the alders, falling with a “plump” to the snow.