Standing amid the clustered alders which lined the banks of an ice-bound stream that flowed through a little valley, Rodney Grant listened with a tingling thrill to the musical baying of a hound running a rabbit. Rouser had struck a scent, and now, after circling some distance into the deeper woods, the sound of his voice, growing more and more distinct, indicated that he was coming back. Holding Lem Sawyer’s gun ready for use, Rod changed his position somewhat, in order to get a better view through a little break or opening in the alders. The snow crunched softly beneath his feet, and a few light, feathery flakes, dislodged as he brushed against the bushes, floated down around him. A chickadee, undisturbed by the baying of the dog or the presence of the boy near at hand, performed some amazing evolutions amid the branches a few feet away, keeping up the while a constant friendly chatter in a ludicrously hoarse and husky tone. Up the bank behind Rod, some distance to the right, the snow crunched a little and a dark figure appeared at the edge of the spruces.

“’St! ’st!” came a double hiss of warning. “Watch out, Grant! He’s coming! He’s coming! You may see him first.”

It was Spotty, who had sought a more favorable position, only to be led back that way by the baying of the dog. Lander had gone still farther up stream.

Hearing the hound coming in full tongue, Rod did not even turn his head, but crouched a bit to peer through the opening down which the dog’s voice floated from the shadowy woods beyond the stream. His eyes were keen for the first glimpse of the running rabbit, and his finger was ready for the trigger.

Whit-ker-whit—whirr!

Spotty, moving again, had sent a partridge out from beneath the shelter of some low-hanging evergreens. With a gasp, he swung half round and blazed away, almost blindly, at the flitting bird, which went soaring over the alders toward the cover of the dense woods beyond the stream. He knew he had missed, even as he fired.

Grant, straightening up as if jerked by an electric shock, saw the brown bird flash against a bit of gray sky. There was no time to bring the butt of the gun to his shoulder. He fired, seemingly without taking aim, and the partridge crashed down through the alders, falling with a “plump” to the snow.

“Get him—did you get him?” palpitated Spotty.

“I reckon I did,” answered the young Texan coolly, stooping to peer through the bushes and perceiving the bunch of brown feathers that lay so still some distance away.

But the rabbit was still coming, if the approaching staccato of the hound was to be accepted as positive evidence, and Rod, satisfied that the partridge would remain where it had dropped, again turned his attention to the business from which it had been temporarily distracted.

“By, jinks!” muttered Spotty. “I guess he can shoot, all right.”

Over in the woods beyond, the fleeing rabbit had stopped short at the crashing report of the gun, sitting straight up on its haunches for a fleeting moment, its whole body aquiver with terror. Only for a moment did it linger. The clamoring dog on its track was coming, filling the whole woods with a racket which plainly told that the scent was rapidly growing warm. Ahead silence had followed that double burst of terrible sound, but behind was the relentless pursuer, who was making the forest ring. The hunted thing seemed to know where the crossing of the stream could most easily be made, and beyond the stream, up the bank, were the thick firs and the deep, sheltering shadows.

On it came once more, with great bounds, long ears flattened back. Gray almost as the snow itself, it leaped forth into the little opening.

This time the butt of the gun in Rodney Grant’s hands was pressed to his shoulder for an instant. The left barrel belched smoke, and the rabbit, shot-riddled in the midst of a leap, was practically dead when it struck the snow.

“Get him—did you get him?” yelled Spotty once more.

“I sure did,” laughed Grant, breaking down the gun to eject the empty shells. Blowing through the barrels, he slipped in fresh cartridges, snapped the gun together, pushed through the bushes to pick up the partridge, and had almost reached the rabbit when Rouser came bellowing forth from the woods to stop in surprise and sniff around the furry, blood-stained body.

“Say, you’re a holy terror!” spluttered Davis, as he came crunching and crashing through the alders. “You can shoot some, can’t you?”

“It’s a cinch with a shotgun,” laughed Rod. “I’ve always done most of my shooting with a rifle.”

“Don’t believe Bunk thought that rabbit would circle back this way,” confessed Davis. “If he had, he wouldn’t have gone up-stream. He’ll be coming pretty soon, now that Rouser’s quit talking after that shooting. We had better go meet him.”

Already the dog was sniffing around in the bushes for a fresh scent. Spotty called the animal, and they pushed up-stream, soon discovering Lander approaching.

“Get anything?” asked Bunk.

“I didn’t,” acknowledged Spotty. “I put up a biddy, but I missed her. Rod brought her down, though, and he got that rabbit, too.”

His gun tucked under his arm, Lander looked at the partridge and the rabbit in evident surprise.

“Great luck,” he commented, with an evident shade of chagrin. “Good work for a greenhorn. Sometimes it happens that way; the feller who’s green gets all the chances.”

“Greenhorn!” snickered Spotty. “You should see him shoot. Here, Rouser, come back here! Come back, sir!”

The old dog had been slipping away into the woods, but he returned at the command.

“Well, we’ll have our stew all right,” said Lander. “That’s a consolation for us, Spot.”

They moved on, Bunk leading and directing the dog. After a time another track was picked up, and again Rouser went baying off into the woods.

“We’ll wait a while and see which way he turns,” said Bunk, who hoped to pick the lucky location for himself this time.

“Hark! What’s that?” cried Davis suddenly, as the distant report of a gun drifted to their ears.

“Somebody else out for rabs, I guess,” growled Lander. “Yes, there’s their dog. Listen!”

Another hound, much farther away than Rouser, was heard giving voice.

“Bet the feller that fired made a miss,” grinned Spotty. “It takes old Deadeye Grant from Texas to bring ’em down.”

With his ear cocked, Lander listened. After a time he said:

“This is a good place, Grant. You stay here. Spot, you can go farther up this time. I’m going to cross over.”

Watching them hurry away, Grant said nothing, although he knew Bunk was trying to secure for himself the chance of the next shot.

For some moments after they vanished his keen ears heard an occasional distant sound, like the cracking of branches or the rustling of bodies pushing through thickets; but this gradually died out, and something like a lonely hush settled over the winter woods. He could still hear the distant baying of the dogs, but this seemed even to accentuate the stillness in his immediate vicinity.

“I reckon it was more by accident than anything else, that Rouser turned the rabbit back my way before,” muttered the lad from Texas, “and I don’t judge it will happen again. If I stay here I won’t get another shot. Bunk and Spotty count on doing the rest of the shooting themselves. By the sound, I should say Rouser will be over in the next township before he stops.”

The inactivity swiftly became irksome to him, and finally, with gun tucked under his arm and game bag containing the rabbit and partridge slung from his shoulder, he set forth, guided by the barking of the dogs. At times he was forced to stoop to make his way through the low, scrubby growth, and once he paused to tie a red silk handkerchief about his neck, down which the snow had an uncomfortable way of sifting from the overhanging bushes which he disturbed as he pushed along. He made no attempt to follow either Lander or Davis, but finally, to his satisfaction, the sound of the dogs grew more and more distinct, and he came to a swamp growth where rabbit tracks and paths were plentiful. This swamp covered an extensive territory, and in its depth the hounds seemed to be pursuing the twisting, turning, circling game.

“I’ll bet something that both Bunk and Spotty are here somewhere,” laughed Rod softly. “They tried to leave me picketed over yonder where there wasn’t a show for me to do a whole lot of shooting. Perhaps they think I’ve done enough already.”

“Whoo!” came a hoarse shout, which sounded almost in Rod’s ear and caused him to give a ludicrously startled jump. Ere he could recover and shoot, a fluffy gray thing shot out of the shadows at one side and was gone into the still deeper shadows of another thicket.

“An owl,” muttered Grant, with a short laugh and a feeling of foolishness over his alarm. “He was sitting right there on the broken branch of that old dead stub. Owls aren’t good to eat, but, mounted, he would have made a good trophy for my room.”

Still, with the sound of the dogs drawing nearer, he spent little time in regretting the escape of the owl. Once the hounds were so close that he stood half crouching, peering into the shadows of the swamp, fully expecting to see the hunted rabbit come bounding forth into view; but suddenly the baying swept away to one side and passed on to the north, denoting that the furry fugitive had made a turn in the effort to baffle the clamoring animals that would give him no rest.

“It’s right plain he’s sticking to this swamp tract,” thought Rod, “and so I judge he’ll come round this way again if some one doesn’t pop him over.”

He moved on a few rods, found a spot that seemed favorable, placed himself with a tree at his back, and continued to wait, as motionless and rigid as the tree itself.

It was quite warm down here in the swamp, where no breath of air stirred. If other living creatures there were in the immediate vicinity of the young hunter, it appeared that they were also hypnotized into stony silence by the baying of the dogs, now drawing near, now receding, growing faint, becoming plainer again, and finally seeming swiftly to approach.

“If I get this fellow, too, I’ll sure have the laugh on Bunk and Spotty,” whispered Rod, holding his gun ready to clap it instantly to his shoulder.

The dogs came straight on. Unless they changed their course soon, they must certainly pass within easy shooting distance. The wild, blood-thrilling music of their voices made the whole swamp ring. Once the waiting lad fancied he heard a slight crashing off at the left, but, thinking it might be Lander or Davis approaching, he did not turn his eyes in that direction. Now it seemed that the passing of any second might bring the hounds into view. Beyond question they were close upon the rabbit, and——

Up went Rod’s gun. His eye caught the sights, his finger pressed the trigger. Following the report of the piece, the smoke, drifting slowly upward on the heavy air, unveiled the rabbit kicking in its last throes upon the blood-stained snow.

“Another!” exulted Rodney Grant, as, ere advancing, he extracted the empty shell and slipped a fresh one into the gun.

A black-and-tan dog flashed into view, reached the slain rabbit and nearly lost its footing in the attempt to stop promptly.

“You’re pretty lively for an old dog, Rouser,” chuckled Rod. “You certainly seem to have amazing good wind.”

But, still baying frantically, another dog was coming, and within ten feet of the rabbit Grant stood still, uttering an exclamation of surprise, his eyes fixed on the hound that was yet sniffing around the dead game.

“It’s not Rouser!” he muttered. “It’s——”

“What in blazes do you mean by shooting a rabbit ahead of my dog?” cried a voice.

Rod twisted the upper part of his body round and gazed over his shoulder at two lads with guns who were hurriedly approaching on snowshoes.