a great place for rabbits."
Ponto was doubtless aware of that fact, for he was dashing to and fro most industriously.
There were plenty of little tracks on the snow, as the boys could now plainly see; but they crossed each other in all directions, after a manner that puzzled Porter Hudson exceedingly.
"How will he find out which one of them he'd better follow up?"
"Wait, Port: you'll see."
Porter was taking his first lesson as a sportsman, and was peering anxiously behind trees and in among the nearest bushes. Suddenly he saw something, or thought he saw it, which made him hold his breath and tremblingly lift his gun.
"Can that be a real rabbit," he thought, "sitting there so still?"
He did not utter a loud word; and the first Corry heard about it was from both barrels of his cousin's gun, fired in quick succession. Bang, bang! they went.
"What is it, Port?"
"I've got him! I've got him!"
He was bounding away across the snow, and disappeared among some thick hazel-bushes. A moment more, and he was out again, with a rabbit in his hand every ounce as big as the one Corry had killed.
"First-rate, Port! Was he running?"
"No, he was sitting still, and listening for something."
Corry was too polite to say that no regular sportsman fired at a rabbit unless it was running. It would have been a pity to have dampened Porter Hudson's tremulous exultation over his first game.
He held that rabbit up, and looked at it, until he grew red in the face.
He had no time to talk then; for he had his gun to load, and he was in no small anxiety as to whether he should succeed in getting the charge in rightly. Besides, there was Ponto racing across the farther side of the swamp, with a big rabbit just ahead of him. He was a capital jumper, that rabbit, and he was gaining on his barking pursuer when he ran out within range of Corry Farnham's gun.
Only one barrel was fired, but Ponto's master was ahead again.
"Two to my one," said Porter.
"You'll have chances enough. Don't you let off both barrels every time, though, or you may lose some of 'em. Fill your rabbits all full of shot, too, like that one."
Port's idea had been that both barrels of his gun were there for the purpose of being fired off, but he was quite ready to take a hint. He had more and more serious doubts, however, about his ability to hit a rabbit on the run. The first time he actually tried to do it, he doubted more than ever. His chance and his disappointment came to him a little after Corry's gun was loaded, and while they were crossing the swamp.
"I must have hit him," he said, as he lowered his gun, and looked after the rabbit he had fired at, and which was still clearing the snow with long, vigorous jumps.
"Well, if you did," said Corry, "he hasn't found it out yet."
"Your first one didn't find out he was hit till he got into the tree."
"That's so. But I never knew it to happen just so before. Ponto's after that one again! He's turned him around those sumach-bushes. He's coming this way. Give him your other barrel. Shoot ahead of him."
Porter was positive, in his own mind, that he could not hit that rabbit, and he felt himself blushing as he raised his gun; but he tried to see the rabbit somewhere beyond the end of it, and then he blazed away.
"I declare! you've done it! A good long distance too."
It was so very long, that the shot had scattered a great deal, and one of the little leaden pellets had strayed in the direction of that rabbit, – just one, but it was as good as a dozen, for it had struck in a vital spot; and Porter was as proud as if the skin of his game had been filled with shot-holes.
"I'm even with you now."
"That's so. If you only had practice, you'd shoot well enough."
Almost two hours went by, after that, and they tramped all over the swamp. Porter killed another sitting rabbit; but Corry was again one ahead of him, and was feeling half sorry for it, when he suddenly stopped marching, and lifted his hand, exclaiming, —
"Hear Ponto! Hark! Away yonder!"
"Started another rabbit."
"No, he hasn't. It isn't any rabbit this time."
"What is it? What is it?"
"Hear that jumping? Hear Ponto's yelp? It's a deer."
"Deer! Did you say it was a deer? Can you tell?"
"Hark! Listen!"
Ponto was no deer-hound. He was somewhat too heavily built for that kind of sport; but any deer of good common sense would get away from his neighborhood, all the same. The certainty that the dog could not catch him would not interfere with his running.
Ponto's discovery was a really splendid buck, and he was in a terrible hurry when his long, easy bounds brought him out from among the forest-trees into the more open ground in the edge of the swamp. Porter thought he had never before seen any thing half so exciting, but the buck went by like a flash.
Just half a minute later, Corry turned ruefully to his cousin, and asked him, —
"Port, what did you and I fire both barrels of our guns for?"
"Why, to hit the deer."
"At that distance? And with small shot too? If they'd reached him, they'd hardly have stung him. Let's go home."
Porter was ready enough; and it was not long before even Ponto gave up following the buck, and came panting along at the heels of his master. He looked a little crestfallen, as if he were nearly prepared to remark, —
"No use to drive deer for boys. I did my duty. No dog of my size and weight can do more."
They had a tramp before them. Not that they were so far from home, but then it was one long wade through the snow until they reached the road; and Porter Hudson knew much more about the weight of rabbits by the time he laid his game down at the kitchen-door of the farmhouse.
They had been growing heavier and heavier all the way, until he almost wished he had not killed more than one.
CHAPTER IV.
WINTER COMFORT
Susie and Pen had a grand ride to the farmhouse on the wood-sleigh.
Perched away up there on top of the brushwood, they could get the full effect of every swing and lurch of the load under them. Vosh Stebbins had to chuckle again and again, in spite of his resolute politeness; for the girls would scream a little, and laugh a great deal, when the sleigh sank suddenly on one side in a snowy hollow, or slid too rapidly after the oxen down a steeper slope than common. It was great fun; and, when they reached the house, Susie Hudson almost had to quarrel with aunt Judith to prevent being wrapped in a blanket, and shoved up in a big rocking-chair into the very face of the sitting-room fireplace.
"Do let her alone, Judith," said aunt Farnham. "I don't believe she's been frost-bitten."
