Sagamore came galloping back with a soft, unsoiled mass of chestnut and
brown feathers in his mouth. Siward took the dead cock, passed it back
to the keeper who followed them, patted the beautiful eager dog and
signalled him forward once more.

"You should have fired that time," he said to Sylvia--"that is, if you
care to kill anything."

"But I don't seem to be able to," she said. "It isn't a bit like
shooting at clay targets. The twittering whirr takes me by surprise--it's
all so charmingly sudden--and my heart seems to stop in one beat, and I
look and look and then--whisk! the woodcock is gone, leaving me
breathless--"

Her voice ceased; the white setter, cutting up his ground ahead, had
stopped, rigid, one leg raised, jaws quivering and locking alternately.

"Isn't that a stunning picture!" said Siward in a low voice. "What a
beauty he is--like a statue in white and blue-veined marble. You may
talk, Miss Landis; woodcock don't flush at the sound of the human voice
as grouse do."

"See his brown eyes roll back at us! He wonders why we don't do
something!" whispered the girl. "Look, Mr. Siward! Now his head is
moving--oh so gradually to the left!"

"The bird is moving on the ground," nodded Siward; "now the bird has
stopped."