"Well, game is what you choose to make it," said the old gentleman. "I have seen worse days' sport than I saw once when we were out after rattlesnakes and nothing else. There was a cave, sir, down under a mountain a few miles to the south of this, right at the foot of a bluff some four or five hundred feet sheer down,--it was known to be a resort of those creatures; and a party of us went out,--it's many years ago now,--to see if we couldn't destroy the nest--exterminate the whole horde. We had one dog with us,--a little dog, a kind of spaniel; a little white and yellow fellow,--and he did the work! Well, sir,--how many of those vermin do you guess that little creature made a finish of that day?--of large and small, sir, there were two hundred and twelve."
"He must have been a gallant little fellow."
"You never saw a creature, sir, take to a sport better; he just dashed in among them, from one to another,--he would catch a snake by the neck and give it a shake, and throw it down and rush at another;--poor fellow, it was his last day's sport,--he died almost as soon as it was over; he must have received a great many bites. The place is known as the rattlesnakes' den to this day, though there are none there now, I believe."
"My little cousin is well, I hope," said Mr. Rossitur.
"She? yes, bless her I she is always well. Where is she? Fairy, where are you?--Cynthy, just call Elfieda here."
"She's just in the thick of the muffins, Mr. Ringgan."
Miss Cynthia accordingly opened a little way the door of the passage, from which a blue stifling smoke immediately made its way into the room, and called out to Fleda. whose little voice was heard faintly responding from the distance.
"It's a wonder she can hear through all that smoke," remarked Cynthia.
"She," said Mr. Ringgan, laughing,--"she's playing cook or housekeeper in yonder, getting something ready for tea. She's a busy little spirit, if ever there was one. Ah! there she is. Come here, Fleda--here's your cousin Rossitur from West Point--and Mr. Carleton."
Fleda made her appearance flushed with the heat of the stove and the excitement of turning the muffins, and the little iron spatula she used for that purpose still in her hand; and a fresh and larger puff of the unsavoury blue smoke accompanied her entrance. She came forward however gravely and without the slightest embarrassment to receive her cousin's somewhat unceremonious "How do, Fleda?"--and keeping the spatula still in one hand shook hands with him with the other. But at the very different manner in which Mr. Carleton _rose_ and greeted her, the flush on Fleda's cheek deepened, and she cast down her eyes and stepped back to her grandfather's side with the demureness of a young lady just undergoing the ceremony of presentation.