Four or five lapwings, screaming shrilly, wheeled in wide circles overhead, showing sharply black and white as the light struck them, and fading into indistinct gray patches as they turned in erratic flight. The men advanced cautiously, searching the ground with eager eyes, and keeping their positions as closely as possible. This was needful for the safety of the party in case a bird got up and crossed their line of march, when the right to first shot would be determined by the code of shooting etiquette. Andrew was plodding through a belt of rush with a plover circling close above his head when the setter, after creeping slowly forward for a few paces, suddenly stopped. Then a small gray object sprang up from a drain and Andrew threw his gun to his shoulder. He dropped it the next moment, with a low call to Murray: "Your bird!" The snipe had swung a little to the right in its swift flight, swerving in sharp corkscrew twists, and Murray's gun twice flashed. The bird, however, held on and faded against the dusky background of the river bank. Murray stopped and turned to Andrew with a laugh. "I'm afraid I'm hardly up to snipe," he said. "It's a pity you were generous enough to give me the shot." "It was yours by right." "That," Murray disputed, "is an open point. If I had been in your place and could have hit the bird, I wouldn't have let it go. However, if the firing hasn't made them wild, you may get another chance." The sun had sunk behind the tall bank and the pale yellow light that lingered was confusing when the setter flushed a second snipe, which went away at long range in front of Andrew. During a part of each quick gyration he could not see it, but when it was outlined for a second, black against the light, his gun flashed and the bird fell among the reeds. When the setter had found it Murray looked surprised. "Considering the bad light and the distance, it was a remarkably clean shot," he said. "I expected to see that you had hit it with only a stray pellet or two." "I used the left barrel," Andrew explained, smiling. "It's a half-choke; an old gun. That accounts for the charge hanging together." "It doesn't account for your killing your bird at a long range with shot which wouldn't spread. But it's getting dark and we've had enough." They turned back to the nearest road, and an hour or two after reaching home Andrew walked across to Olcott's. Ethel Hillyard was there, and when they went into dinner Murray, sitting next to her, glanced at Andrew near the other end of the table. "I was out with Mr. Allinson to-day," he said. "As he's a neighbor of yours, I've no doubt you know him pretty well. He struck me as a particularly straight man." "He is so," declared Ethel warmly. "I don't know a straighter. Still, I don't see how you came to that conclusion by watching his shooting."