barrel, or how to bring it up again with a true aim; but it’s wicked
to be shooting into flocks in this wasty manner, and none to do it who
know how to knock over a single bird. If a body has a craving for
pigeon’s flesh, why, it’s made the same as all other creatures, for
man’s eating; but not to kill twenty and eat one. When I want such a
thing I go into the woods till I find one to my liking, and then I
shoot him off the branches, without touching the feather of another,
though there might be a hundred on the same tree. You couldn’t do
such a thing, Billy Kirby—you couldn’t do it if you tried.”

“What’s that, old corn-stalk! you sapless stub!” cried the wood-
chopper. “You have grown wordy, since the affair of the turkey; but
if you are for a single shot, here goes at that bird which comes on by
himself.”

The fire from the distant part of the field had driven a single pigeon
below the flock to which it belonged, and, frightened with the
constant reports of the muskets, it was approaching the spot where the
disputants stood, darting first from One side and then to the other,
cutting the air with the swiftness of lightning, and making a noise
with its wings not unlike the rushing of a bullet. Unfortunately for
the wood-chopper, notwithstanding his vaunt, he did not see this bird
until it was too late to fire as it approached, and he pulled the
trigger at the unlucky moment when it was darting immediately over his
head. The bird continued its course with the usual velocity.

Natty lowered his rifle from his arm when the challenge was made, and
waiting a moment, until the terrified victim had got in a line with
his eye, and had dropped near the bank of the lake, he raised it again
with uncommon rapidity, and fired. It might have been chance, or it