"All right. I'm going to be ready for all that comes along. Still life,
if I have to, or anything else."
Will's last words were drowned in the report of Jerry's gun. He had swung
it around like a flash, and without apparently glancing along the
barrels, fired one charge at something that was flashing through the
undergrowth.
There came a second shot, so close upon the heels of the first that the
reports were almost blended in one.
Jerry turned and looked reproachfully at Frank.
"Talk about your sporting blood, you sure wiped my eye that
time," he said.
"The bird was a little too close for your shot to scatter; I had a better
chance as it flew away farther. You'd have dropped him with your second
barrel, I reckon, old fellow," cried Frank, hurrying forward to pick up
the partridge.
"Yes, I've no doubt I would; but that's the first time I ever had any
one step in and beat me clean. I'll have to watch out for you after
this, you sly 'possum. But then you've shot lots of these birds up in
Maine, I suppose?"
"Plenty of them; but up there they light in trees, and the natives don't
hesitate to drop them while they sit."
"That's little short of murder," said Jerry.
After an hour's walk they reached the camp of old Jesse.
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