the sunshine on the ridge across the valley.

The woods were all still after that; jays and squirrels seemed
appalled at the tragedy, and avoided me as if I were responsible
for the still little body under the hemlock tips. An hour passed;
then, a quarter-mile away, in the direction that the deer had
taken in the early morning, a single jay set up his cry, the cry
of something new passing in the woods. Two or three others joined
him; the cry came nearer. A flock of crossbills went whistling
overhead, coming from the same direction. Then, as I slipped away
into an evergreen thicket, a partridge came whirring up, and
darted by me like a brown arrow driven by the bending branches
behind him, flicking the twigs sharply with his wings as he drove
along. And then, on the path of his last forerunner, Old Wally
appeared, his keen eyes searching his murderous gibbetline
expectantly.

Now Old Wally was held in great reputation by the Nimrods of the
village, because he hunted partridges, not with "scatter-gun" and
dog,--such amateurish bungling he disdained and swore
against,--but in the good old-fashioned way of stalking with a
rifle. And when he brought his bunch of birds to market, his
admirers pointed with pride to the marks of his wondrous skill.
Here was a bird with the head hanging by a thread of skin; there
one with its neck broken; there a furrow along the top of the
head; and here--perfect work!--a partridge with both eyes gone,
showing the course of his unerring bullet.

Not ten yards from my hiding place he took down a partridge from
its gallows, fumbled a pointed stick out of his pocket, ran it