As he spoke another large grey goose was seen stretching its long neck amongst the reeds at a distance of about two hundred yards. The crack of the rifle was followed by the instant death of the goose. At the same moment several companions of the bird rose trumpeting into the air amid a cloud of other birds. Again the rifle’s crack was heard, and one of the geese on the wing dropped beside its comrade.
As Leo carried his repeating rifle, he might easily have shot another, but he refrained, as the bird would have been too far out to be easily picked up.
“Now, Benjy, are you to go in, or am I?” asked the sportsman with a sly look.
“Oh! I suppose I must,” said the boy with an affectation of being martyred, though, in truth, nothing charmed him so much as to act the part of a water-dog.
A few seconds more, and he was stripped, for his garments consisted only of shirt and trousers. But it was more than a few seconds before he returned to land, swimming on his back and trailing a goose by the neck with each hand, for the reeds were thick and the mud softish, and the second bird had been further out than he expected.
“It’s glorious fun,” said Benjy, panting vehemently as he pulled on his clothes.
“It’s gloriously knocked up you’ll be before long at that rate,” said the Captain.
“Oh! but, uncle,” said Leo, quickly, “you must not suppose that I give him all the hard work. We share it between us, you know. Benjy sometimes shoots and then I do the retrieving. You’ve no idea how good a shot he is becoming.”
“Indeed, let me see you do it, my boy. D’ye see that goose over there?”
“What, the one near the middle of the lake, about four hundred yards off?”