through the bird's neck, and stowed the creature that had died
miserably, without a chance for its life, away in one of his big
pockets, a self-satisfied grin on his face as he glanced down the
hedge and saw another bird swinging. So he followed his hangman's
hedge, treating each bird to his pointed stick, carefully
resetting the snares after him and clearing away the fallen
leaves from the fatal pathways. When he came to the rabbit he
harled him dexterously, slipped him over his long gun barrel,
took his bearings in a quick look, and struck over the ridge for
another southern hillside.

Here, at last, was the secret of Wally's boasted skill in
partridge hunting with a rifle. Spite of my indignation at the
snare line, the cruel death which gaped day and night for the
game as it ran about heedlessly in the fancied security of its
own coverts, a humorous, half shame-faced feeling of admiration
would creep in as I thought of the old sinner's cunning, and
remembered his look of disdain when he met me one day, with a
"scatter-gun" in my hands and old Don following obediently at
heel. Thinking that in his long life he must have learned many
things in the woods that I would be glad to know, I had invited
him cordially to join me. But he only withered me with the
contempt in his hawk eyes, and wiggled his toe as if holding back
a kick from my honest dog with difficulty.

"Go hunting with ye? Not much, Mister. Scarin' a pa'tridge to
death with a dum dog, and then turnin' a handful o' shot loose on
the critter, an' call it huntin'! That's the way to kill a
pa'tridge, the on'y decent way"--and he pulled a bird out of his
pocket, pointing to a clean hole through the head where the eyes