Part 9 (2/2)
”He hasn't had a gun until to-day, to my certain knowledge,” said Kennedy; ”and I saw him yesterday afternoon taking aim at a goose that had lighted among his decoys, along the helve of his axe.”
”Well, well! No one believed him, of course; but, for Heaven's sake, when you express incredulity again, wait until the lie is finished, if I am in the party!” grumbled La Salle.
”Well, never mind; he got through with the best part of it; and the great wonder is, how a distempered brain could imagine all that impossible but well-connected delusion.”
”Kennedy,” said La Salle, with unusual gravity, ”how can we decide that it is all a delusion? Few men, indeed, have claimed to see the devil, to whom they sell themselves daily for trifles lighter than the hunter's meed of unrivaled success; and who can say that the story of yonder madman is more or less than the fruit of the idle habits and unbridled temper which burned up happiness, and consumed his reason? There are few who go mad who would have done so had they at the first governed and denied themselves, and been content to enjoy in reason the benefits of the great Giver.”
”There is much that is true in what you say, and I've got a piece in this very Tribune which bears on that point. I'll read it to you. Hang me if ever I saw the like! Where's Davies' ice-house? Is there a fog coming up, or am I dizzy?”
”O, that's nothing,” said La Salle, laughing. ”You're only going blind--snow-blind, I mean. You know that Kane tells about his people using goggles to prevent snow-blindness; and you left yours off yesterday and to-day.”
”Well, it's a curious thing. I can barely see you now; and I know I could not find my way home to save my life. But what shall I do? Will it last long?”
”If I had but a handkerchief full of clay, I could cure it in half an hour; but lie down in the straw, and get your head under the half-deck, where you can see neither sun nor snow, and I think you will rest yourself enough to see pretty well by the time we want to go home.”
But Kennedy was fated to lie in impatient helplessness during the remainder of the afternoon. Several fine flocks came in to the decoys; and La Salle, using the double-barrel first, and firing the huge duck-gun at long range, killed three, and sometimes four, out of each flock, while Kennedy groaned in anguish of spirit. At last he could bear it no longer.
”Keep close, Kennedy; there's another flock coming, and the finest I've seen this year. There's twenty at the least, and they're coming right in.”
”Give me my gun, Charley. I can't see much, but I can a little, and I can fire where I hear them call. This is my last day; for Patrick is coming out to-night with the boys, and I go in with them. Where are the birds now?”
”Right dead to leeward. Ah-h-huk! ah-h-huk! Here they come, low down, and ready to light. Ah-h-huk! ah-h-huk! Now, Kennedy, can you see them?”
”Yes; that is, I see something like flies in a black gauze net. Are those geese?”
”Yes, and close to us; so up and fire.”
Bang! bang! crashed the heavy double-barrel, with both reports nearly blended in one, and Kennedy was driven back by the recoil against the rear top board of the boat. Nearly bursting with laughter, La Salle ”lined” the flock as they swung off, killing and wounding three.
”Are you hurt, Kennedy?” he inquired, jumping out of the boat to catch the wounded birds.
”Dot buch, but by dose bleeds a little, a'd I've cut by lip. How baddy have I killed, Charley? for I cad see dothing,” inquired the victim, anxiously.
”One, two, three, four, FIVE, by jingo! Faith, you've beat the crowd, so far, this spring, and when you were stone-blind, almost, at that. Well, it's pretty dark, and we'd better be getting home now, I think.”
The geese were picked up, and, with the others,--about twenty in all,--were loaded upon the ”taboggin,” which the two hunters with some difficulty drew through the drifts to the house where, on their arrival, they found that Pat had arrived from the city with some small stores, papers, letters, &c., but the boys had not accompanied him.
”They'll be out on skates wid Carlo and his slid on Monday,” he said.
”Now, Misther Kennedy, whiniver you're ready, ye'll find me to the fore in the kitchen.”
”Mr. Kennedy mustn't go until he gives us a story in his turn. Now the moon rises to-night, at about nine o'clock, and it will be much pleasanter and safer on the ice by moonlight. What say you, Pat?”
”Faith, I'm agreeable, and I'd a little rather, to tell the truth; for there's an ugly bit of road across the Pint there.”
”Well, Kennedy will have time to eat supper, and then we'll have his story, when it will be time for us to go to bed, and just right for him to start for town.”
”Or, in other words,” said La Salle, ”it will be 'time for honest folk to be abed, and rogues on the road.'”
All sat down to supper, including Pat, to whom a plate of roast goose and two or three cups of strong, hot, black tea were very refres.h.i.+ng after his ten-mile drive; and then, after the little preparations for the next day's shooting, and Kennedy's little arrangements for his departure, the little group gathered round the blazing hearth, and Kennedy, with some little hesitation, began the story of
<script>