If this should be done, the smallest urchin will be able to recognize
the species from its peculiar call.

Sam Harper would have been glad indeed if he could have secured one of
these delicious birds for supper, but there was little prospect of
doing so. The game looks so much like the brown and mottled leaves among
which it searches for food, that a hunter would almost place his foot
upon one without observing it, while the nest of the quail or partridge
is almost as impossible to find as the remains of an elephant in Ceylon,
where it is said no such remains have ever been discovered.

One of the lessons Sam had learned from his father was to reload his gun
immediately after firing it, so as to be ready for any emergency.
Accordingly, before stirring from his place, he threw out the shell from
his breech-loader and replaced it with a new cartridge.

Just as he did so, he heard the report of a gun only a short distance to
the left, at a point where Herbert Watrous should have been.

"He's scared up something," was the natural conclusion of Sam, who
smiled as he added; "I wonder whether he could hit a bear a dozen feet
off with that wonderful Remington of his. It's a good weapon, and I wish
I owned one; but I wouldn't start out to hunt big game until I learned
something about it."

The boy waited a minute, listening for some signal from his companion,
but none was heard and he moved on again.

Sam, like many an amateur hunter, began to appreciate the value of a