Frank immediately dropped the owl, caught up his gun, and started in hot pursuit.  But his cousin had made the most of his time, and, when Frank reached the gate, he saw Archie far up the road, tearing along as fast as his legs could carry him, and spattering the mud in every direction.

Under any other circumstances, Frank would have stopped to laugh; but, as it was, he had no time to lose.  So he ran down the bank of the creek, and, untying his skiff, pushed out into the stream, and a few strokes of the oars brought him to the opposite shore; then, fastening the skiff to a tree, he started through the woods, toward the swamp.  This enabled him to gain on his cousin almost half a mile.

But Archie happened to have luck on his side this time; for the ducks, instead of alighting in the swamp, as he had supposed, had come down in the creek; and, as he was hurrying along the road, which ran close to the creek, a slight splashing in the water and a hoarse “quack” attracted his attention, and caused him to proceed with more caution.  He listened until the noise was repeated, in order that he might know exactly where the ducks were, and then began to worm his way through the wet bushes, in the direction of the sound.  At length he crawled up behind a large log, that lay close to the water’s edge, and had the satisfaction of finding the game fairly before him.

But the most difficult part of the undertaking was yet to come.  The ducks—­seven of them in all—­were fully twenty rods off; and, although Archie had great confidence in the “shooting qualities” of his gun, he hardly dared to fire—­he might only wound the birds; and, as he had no ammunition with him besides the loads in his gun, he was anxious to make every shot tell.

“This won’t do,” he soliloquized.  “I must get up nearer.”

He was about to retrace his steps, when he noticed that the ducks began to move impatiently around, and acted as if about to fly.

In an instant Archie’s mind was made up; it was now or never; and, taking a quick aim at the nearest of the flock, he blazed away.  It was his only chance, and a slim one at that, for the distance was so great that he hardly expected the shot would take effect; but, when the smoke cleared away, he discovered one of the flock lying motionless on the water, and another, too badly wounded to rise, was swimming slowly around him.  The rest of the flock were skimming along the surface of the creek, toward the swamp.  They were far beyond the range of his gun, and he knew it would do no good to fire at them; so he concluded, to use his own expression, to “make sure of what he had got,” and, taking aim at the wounded bird, was about to give it the contents of the other barrel, when he heard the report of a gun some distance further up the creek, and looked up just in time to see one of the birds fall into the water.

“Who’s that, I wonder,” said Archie, to himself.  “It can’t be Frank, for he wouldn’t be on that side of the creek; besides, I had a good long start of him.”