“I know what I shall do,” said Harry, with a resolute air: “I’ll go and shoot!”
“Shoot!” cried Charley. “You don’t mean to say that you’re going to waste your powder and shot by firing at the clouds! for unless you take them, I see nothing else here.”
“That’s because you don’t use your eyes,” retorted Harry. “Will you just look at yonder rock ahead of us, and tell me what you see?”
Charley looked earnestly at the rock, which to a cursory glance seemed as if composed of whiter stone on the top. “Gulls, I declare!” shouted Charley, at the same time jumping up in haste.
Just then one of the gulls, probably a scout sent out to watch the approaching enemy, wheeled in a circle overhead. The two youths dragged their guns from beneath the thwarts of the boat, and rummaged about in great anxiety for shot-belts and powder-horns. At last they were found; and having loaded, they sat on the edge of the boat, looking out for game with as much—ay, with more intense interest than a Blackfoot Indian would have watched for a fat buffalo cow.
“There he goes,” said Harry; “take the first shot, Charley.”
“Where? where is it?”
“Right ahead. Look out!”
As Harry spoke, a small white gull, with bright-red legs and beak, flew over the boat so close to them that, as the guide remarked, “he could see it wink!” Charley’s equanimity, already pretty well disturbed, was entirely upset at the suddenness of the bird’s appearance; for he had been gazing intently at the rock when his friend’s exclamation drew his attention in time to see the gull within about four feet of his head. With a sudden “Oh!” Charley threw forward his gun, took a short, wavering aim, and blew the cock-tail feather out of Baptiste’s hat; while the gull sailed tranquilly away, as much as to say, “If that’s all you can do, there’s no need for me to hurry!”
“Confound the boy!” cried Mr. Park. “You’ll be the death of someone yet; I’m convinced of that.”