Dusky shook his head.  “No,” said he, “but I learned long ago that where there is one terrible gun there is likely to be more, and so when I heard that one bang, I led my flock away from here in a hurry.  We didn’t want to take any chances.”

“It is a lucky thing you did,” replied Blacky.  “There was a hunter hiding behind those bushes all the time.  I warned you of him once.”

“That reminds me that I haven’t thanked you,” said Dusky.  “I knew there was something wrong over here, but I didn’t know what.  So it was a hunter.  I guess it is a good thing that I heeded your warn-ing.”

“I guess it is,” retorted Blacky dryly.  “Do you come here in daytime instead of night now?”

“No,” replied Dusky.  “We come in after dark and spend the night here.  There is nothing to fear from hunters after dark.  We’ve given up coming here until late in the evening.  And since we did that, we haven’t heard a gun.”

Blacky gossiped a while longer, then flew off to look for his breakfast; and as he flew his heart was light.  His shrewd little eyes twinkled.

“I ought to have known Farmer Brown’s boy better than even to suspect him,” thought he.  “I know now why he had that terrible gun.  It was to frighten those Ducks away so that the hunter would not have a chance to shoot them.  He wasn’t shooting at anything.  He just fired in the air to scare those Ducks away.  I know it just as well as if I had seen him do it.  I’ll never doubt Farmer Brown’s boy again.  And I’m glad I didn’t say a word to anybody about seeing him with a terrible gun.”

Blacky was right.  Farmer Brown’s boy had taken that way of making sure that the hunter who had first baited those Ducks with yellow corn scattered in the rushes in front of his hiding place should have no chance to kill any of them.  While appearing to be an enemy, he really had been a friend of Dusky the Black Duck and his flock.

CHAPTER XXIX:  Blacky Discovers An Egg

Blacky is fond of eggs, as you know.  In this he is a great deal like other people, Farmer Brown’s boy for instance.  But as Blacky cannot keep hens, as Farmer Brown’s boy does, he is obliged to steal eggs or else go without.  If you come right down to plain, everyday truth, I suppose Blacky isn’t so far wrong when he insists that he is no more of a thief than Farmer Brown’s boy.  Blacky says that the eggs which the bens lay belong to the hens, and that he, Blacky has just as much right to take them as Farmer Brown’s boy.  He quite overlooks the fact that Farmer Brown’s boy feeds the biddies and takes the eggs as pay.  Anyway, that is what Farmer Brown’s boy says, but I do not know whether or not the biddies understand it that way.