All through the spring vacation that ice which had made such good skating on the Mississippi hung and hung, regardless of the fact that its mission had been fulfilled, and that it ought to leave the field to the hunters. Meanwhile the wild fowl had been making use of the Missouri waterway; and when, at last, the blockade in the Mississippi was lifted, and in the shape of enormous floes of slush swept down the channel, mashing against the piers of the Beaufort bridge and piling up on the shores, the relief was too late.
Most of the ducks had passed by, on another route, and Ned and Tom had killed never a one.
Tom was disappointed beyond measure. His new gun yearned for its first duck, and but illy submitted to the superior blood-record of Ned's gun. Probably this is why, in its mistaken zeal, it brought to bag what it did.
The duck crop being a failure, the boys had to content themselves with the snipe crop. After the ducks, save now and then a wood-duck or a blue-winged teal which had decided to stay all summer, were beyond reach of even a thirteen-inch cannon, not to speak of a twelve gauge single-barrel, jack snipe and plover still lingered in the marshes and along the edges of the streams.
It was the second Saturday in April, and Ned and Tom were among the sloughs across the river, raking the country for whatever might be so unlucky as to offer itself as an acceptable target. The withdrawal of the ice from the Mississippi had given release to that in the sloughs, and everything was springlike and green and watery.
Now it was afternoon. As to what the boys had thus far secured, the less said, the better. Of course, one cannot have good luck on every trip. But there was a chance, yet, to round out the day well, had not Tom's gun, impatient and unruly, sailed in without waiting, and on its own hook.
The slough was on the boys' right. They were walking single file--Ned carelessly a few paces ahead, or Tom carelessly a few paces behind, just as critics choose--on the alert for game. It might be a pair of plover winging overhead, or a jack snipe whisking from under their feet, or, possibly, a belated duck squawking from its covert, or--something else.
"Boom!" And Ned was on his knees, and, astonished, was trying not to fall farther.