"Look!" he said. "There are two or three ducks yonder. You take the nearest. Keep the foresight as fine as you can."

Frank saw one or two small objects floating just outside the gra.s.s across the pond. They seemed to be a very long way off, and though he feared that he could not keep the sights upon any of them standing, the ground looked horribly quaggy to kneel in. This could not be helped, however, for it seemed that getting wet and torn did not count when one was hunting, and he pressed his right knee down into the mire. He could just see one of the ducks when he closed his left eye, and he had misgivings as to the result when he squeezed the trigger. Harry's rifle flashed immediately after his, there was a rattle of wings and a startled quacking, and he saw two ducks with long necks stretched out fly off above the trees. Another seemed to be lying on the water, and remembering the size of the bullet, he had no fear of that one getting away.

"The next thing is to get it," said Harry. "It's not going to be easy."

He was perfectly right. They spent a long while struggling around the pond, into which they had to wade nearly waist-deep before Harry contrived to rake the duck in toward him with the muzzle of his rifle.

It did not look a sightly object when he had secured it, but he decided that there was enough of it left to eat.

"Is it the one you shot at?" he asked with a grin.

"I can't say," Frank answered. "I shouldn't be surprised if it wasn't."

"Well," said Harry, "we're not going to quarrel about the thing. What we have to do is to make a bee-line home. We'll come along again in a week or two. The ponds are full of ducks for a little in the spring and fall."

"Only then?"

"They're not so plentiful between-whiles," Harry answered. "Of course, our worst winters aren't marked by the cold snaps you have back East, and quite a few of the ducks stay with us, while some put in the summer, too; but in a general way every swimming bird of any size heads north to the tundra marshes by the Polar Sea in spring. In the fall they come back again, how far I don't know--lower California, Mexico, perhaps, right away to Bolivia and Peru. Going and coming, the big flocks stop around here to rest a while." He smiled at his companion. "A mallard duck's a little thing, but he covers a considerable sweep of country."

He picked up the deer and they went on again, but darkness overtook them before they reached the ranch, utterly worn out, with most of their garments rent to tatters; and Frank, who had carried the deer the last mile or two, gave a gasp of relief when he laid it down.

CHAPTER XVII

MR. WEBSTER'S GUNS

It was about a week after the boys' hunting trip when Mr. Oliver's nearest neighbor, Mr. Webster, drove up to the ranch in a dilapidated wagon. It was dark when he arrived, for the days were rapidly getting shorter. When Jake had taken his horse away he laid what appeared to be a small armory on the kitchen table and sat down by the stove. He was a young man with a careless, good-humored expression, and Harry aside informed Frank that his ranch was not much of a place.

"I've brought you my guns along," said Mr. Webster, addressing Mr.

Oliver, and then looked down at the dog, who had walked up to him in the meanwhile and now stood regarding him with its head on one side.

"h.e.l.lo!" he added, patting it, "I'd 'most forgotten you. You have managed to put up with him, Miss Oliver?"

Miss Oliver said that she had grown fond of him, and the dog, after standing up with a paw upon the man's knee, dropped down on all fours at the sound of her voice and trotted back to her without waiting for another pat.

"I always had a notion he was an ungrateful as well as an ordinary beast," said Mr. Webster. "Would you have fancied my dog would leave me like that after all I've done for him? I guess I've laid into him with 'most everything about the ranch from the grubhoe handle to the riding quirt."

Mr. Oliver laughed. "But why have you brought your guns?"

"For you to take care of. My place gets damp in winter without the stove on and I'm going away for a month or two. I've taken on a log-bridge contract with a fellow I used to work with, on one of the new settlement roads. The man who's been clearing land up the creek took the few head of stock I had off my hands and the fruit trees will grow along all right without worrying anybody until I get back again. If one hadn't to do so much cutting every now and then, they'd be a long sight handier than raising stock."

"Well," Mr. Oliver a.s.sured, "I think we can promise to look after the guns. I didn't know you had so many of them."

Mr. Webster arose and walked toward the table. "Though I never was a great shot, guns are rather a hobby of mine. I needn't say anything about these two--single-shot Marlin, Winchester repeater--but the old-timers seem to have a notion that a man must excuse himself for keeping a scatter gun. This"--and he picked up what seemed to Frank a handsome single barrel--"is a thing I bought for a few dollars last time I was in Portland. I allowed she would do to keep the pigeons off my oats. Not much of a gun, but she throws out the sh.e.l.l." Then he took up a double gun with the brown rubbed off the barrels, leaving bright patches. "This one's different; there's some tone about her. A sport I once had boarding with me gave her to me when he went away. Said I'd given him a great time, and as he was fixed, it might be two or three years before he could get out into the woods again."

He sat down on the table and looked over with a smile at the boys. "I don't know any reason why you two shouldn't have those guns until I come back; they'll keep better if they're used and rubbed out once in a while, and there's a box of sh.e.l.ls in the wagon. You can't call yourself a sport until you can drop a flying bird with the scatter gun, and there's considerably more to it than most of the old-timers who can only plug a deer with a rifle seem to think."

He evidently noticed the interest in Frank's face, for he proceeded to demonstrate, standing up with the double gun held across him a little above his waist.

"Now," he added, "you don't want to aim, poking the gun about. You keep it down and your eyes on the bird, until you're ready, and then pitch it up right on the spot first time--it's better with both eyes open, if you can manage it." The gun went in to his shoulder and Frank heard the striker click, after which the man swung the muzzle half a foot or so.

"Say you missed. You've still got the second barrel--"

They heard no more, for there was an appalling crash, a short cry from Miss Oliver, and a yelp from the dog who jumped into the air, while a filmy cloud of smoke drifted about the room. When it cleared Mr.

Webster, who had opened the door, sat down on the table looking very sheepish and turned toward Miss Oliver.

"I'm sorry--dreadful sorry," he observed contritely. "I hadn't the least notion there was anything in the thing."

Mr. Oliver glanced at the ragged hole high up in the log wall and then looked at Mr. Webster with ironical amus.e.m.e.nt in his eyes.

"Your instructions were good as far as they went, but you have forgotten one rather important point." He turned to the boys. "It's this. Never bring a gun of any kind into a house without first opening the magazine or breach, and if there's a sh.e.l.l in it, immediately take it out. It's a precaution that's as simple as it's effective, and though there was perhaps some excuse for an accident in the old days when a man couldn't readily empty his gun unless he fired off the charge, there's none now."

"Sure," agreed Mr. Webster, who seemed to be getting over his confusion, for he addressed the boys again. "With winter coming on, the best sport I know with a scatter gun is shooting flighting duck, and there's plenty of them along the beach. They've a way of moving around in flocks between the light and dark, which is the best time, though you can get them through the night if there's not too bright a moon. A good place would be those patches of sand and mud behind the islands, especially when the tide's just leaving the flats. Take the sloop or canoe along sometime and try it."

The boys thanked him and Frank's eyes glistened as he handled the light single gun.

"What are you going to do with your team?" asked Mr. Oliver, changing the subject.

"Anson down by Nare's Hill will take them for their keep, but I might have made a few dollars out of them if I'd been staying on."

"How's that?"

"Well," in a significant tone, "a man came along three or four nights ago. I don't know where he came from, and I don't know where he went--he just walked in with the lamp lit when I was getting supper. He wanted to know if I was open to hire him a team for a night or two."

"What kind of a man?"

"A stranger. He looked like a sailor and seemed liberal. Said he wanted the team particularly, and if I'd have them handy when he turned up we needn't quarrel about the figure. That must have meant I could charge most what I liked."

"What did you say?"

Mr. Webster smiled. "I just told him the horses were promised and I couldn't make the deal. Anyway"--and he added this in a different voice--"I'd no notion of going back on you."

"Thanks," said Mr. Oliver quietly, and they talked about other matters until Webster, making a few more excuses to Miss Oliver, drove away.

When he had gone she looked at her brother and laughed softly.

"I was startled but not very much astonished when the gun went off," she said. "The little incident was so characteristic of the man."

The next day the boys commenced practicing at flung-up meat cans with the cartridges he had given them and in a week they could hit one every now and then at thirty yards. Soon afterward Mr. Oliver went away. He only told the boys that he was going to Tacoma, but Harry thought it possible that he wanted to see Mr. Barclay, since Mr. Webster's story made it clear that the dope runners were about again. He announced ingenuously that they had better try the flight-shooting while his father was away, because if they came back all right with several ducks he would probably not object to their going another time. Miss Oliver seemed doubtful when they casually mentioned the project to her, but as she did not actually forbid it they set out with the sloop late one afternoon, taking the dog with them.

It was falling dusk and the tide had been running ebb two or three hours when they beat in under the lee side of one of the islands they had pa.s.sed on a previous occasion on their way to the settlement. After anchoring the sloop where she would lie afloat at low water some distance off the beach they got into the canoe and paddling ash.o.r.e crossed the island, which was small and narrow. It was covered with thin underbrush and dwarf firs, and on its opposite side a broad stretch of wet sand and shingle with pools and creeks in it stretched back toward the channel, which cut it off from the mainland.

To the eastward, the pale silver sickle of a crescent moon hung low in the sky, but westward a wide band of flaring crimson and saffron still burned beneath dusky ma.s.ses of ragged cloud and the uncovered sands gleamed blood-red in the fading glow. A cold wind stirred the pines to an eerie sighing, and the splash of a tiny surf came up faintly from the outer edge of the sands. The whole scene struck Frank as very forbidding and desolate, and he fancied that there was a threat of wind in the sky.

Something in the loneliness troubled him, and for no particular reason he felt half sorry that he had come. He realized that it would have been much more cozy in the sloop's cabin than upon that dreary beach, and he said something about the weather to Harry.

"We'll be sheltered here if the breeze does come up, and this looks just the place where we ought to get a duck," his companion answered. "There aren't many spots like it around this part of the coast, where we've generally deeper water. Perhaps we'd better move on a little nearer yonder clump of firs. They'll hide us from any birds that come sailing down to the flats."

"What's the matter with the dog?" Frank asked. "What's he snuffing at?"