"A gun!" croaked Blacky.
"Farmer Brown's boy with a terrible gun! What does it mean?"

Nearer came Farmer Brown's boy, and Blacky could see that terrible
gun plainly now. Suddenly an idea popped into his head. "Perhaps he
is going to shoot that hunter!" thought Blacky, and somehow he felt
better.

Farmer Brown's boy reached the Big River at a point some distance
below the blind built by the hunter. He laid his gun down on the
bank and went down to the edge of the water. The rushes grew very
thick there, and for a while Farmer Brown's boy was very busy among
them. Blacky from his high perch could watch him, and as he watched,
he grew more and more puzzled. It looked very much as if Farmer
Brown's boy was building a blind much like that of the hunter's. At
last he carried an old log down there, got his gun, and sat down
just as the hunter had done in his blind the afternoon before. He
was quite hidden there, excepting from a place high up like Blacky's
perch.

"I -- I -- I do believe he is going to try to shoot those Ducks
himself," gasped Blacky. "I wouldn't have believed it if any one had
told me. No, Sir, I wouldn't have believed it. I -- I -- can't
believe it now. Farmer Brown's boy hunting with a terrible gun! Yet
I've got to believe my own eyes."

A noise up river caught his attention. It was the noise of oars in a
boat. There was the hunter, rowing down the Big River. Just as he
had done the day before, he came ashore above his blind and walked