water, and then he made out nine black spots.  In a few minutes those Ducks would be where he could shoot them.  “Bang, bang” went that gun below him again.  With a roar of wings, Dusky and his flock were in the air and away.  That hunter stood up and said things, and they were not nice things.  He knew that those Ducks would not come back again that night, and that once more he must go home empty-handed.  But first he would find out who that other hunter was and what luck he had had, so he tramped down the shore to where that gun had seemed to be.  He found the blind of Farmer Brown’s boy, but there was no one there.  You see, as soon as he had fired his gun the last time, Farmer Brown’s boy had slipped out and away.  And as he tramped across the Green Meadows toward home with his gun, he chuckled.  “He didn’t get those Ducks this time,” said Farmer Brown’s boy.

CHAPTER XXVII:  The Hunter Gives Up

Blacky The Crow didn’t know what to think.  He couldn’t make himself believe that Farmer Brown’s boy had really turned hunter, yet what else could he believe?  Hadn’t he with his own eyes seen Farmer Brown’s boy with a terrible gun hide in rushes along the Big River and wait for Dusky the Black Duck and his flock to come in?  And hadn’t he with his own ears heard the “bang, bang” of that very gun?

The very first thing the next morning Blacky had hastened over to the place where Farmer Brown’s boy had hidden in the rushes.  With sharp eyes he looked for feathers, that would tell the tale of a Duck killed.  But there were no feathers.  There wasn’t a thing to show that anything so dreadful had happened.  Perhaps Farmer Brown’s boy had missed when he shot at those Ducks.  Blacky shook his head and decided to say nothing to anybody about Farmer Brown’s boy and that terrible gun.

You may be sure that early in the afternoon he was perched in the top of his favorite tree over by the Big River.  His heart sank, just as on the afternoon before, when he saw Farmer Brown’s boy with his terrible gun trudging across the Green Meadows to the Big River.  Instead of going to the same hiding place he made a new one farther down.

Then came the hunter a little earlier than usual.  Instead of stopping at his blind, he walked straight to the blind Farmer Brown’s boy had first made.  Of course, there was no one there.  The hunter looked both glad and disappointed.  He went back to his own blind and sat down, and while he watched for the coming of the Ducks, he also watched that other blind to see if the unknown hunter of the night before would appear.  Of course he didn’t, and when at last the hunter saw the Ducks coming, he was sure that this time he would get some of them.

But the same thing happened as on the night before.  Just as those Ducks were almost near enough, a gun went “bang, bang,” and away went the Ducks.  They didn’t come back again, and once more a disappointed hunter went home without any.