It was on a hot Sunday afternoon in late June, that Leroux and a great friend of his, a very tall boy who had somewhat outgrown his strength, paid what proved to be their last visit to the canal. As it so happened, where they first struck the canal they had only seen some very small pike not worth shooting at and only one shot had been fired at a moorhen, which had missed its mark. However, there was a better hunting ground beyond the bridge where the high road crossed the old canal, and this they proceeded to make for. Before entering the last field which lay between them and the high road, the little rifle was taken to pieces, and Leroux then hid the stock under the left side of his coat, his companion, whose arms were longer than his, concealing the barrel up his right coat-sleeve. The two boys then strolled leisurely along the bank of the canal, towards the gate which opened into the high road just below the bridge. They were close to this gate, in fact almost touching it, when a gamekeeper, in velveteen coat and gaiters, suddenly appeared from behind the hedge on the other side of it and stood confronting them. "'Well, young gents,' he said, 'what have you been doing along the canal?' "'We've been looking for cuckoos' eggs in the reed warblers' nests,' said Leroux readily, and it was indeed a perfectly true answer, though it did not cover the whole scope of their operations. "'Well, I must have your names. Mr. Lowden Beigh[3] means to put a stop to you young gents trespassing on his ground every Sunday,' said the gamekeeper, pulling out a pocket-book and pencil to take them down in. Leroux and his friend at once gave their names, and told the keeper how to spell them, for they knew that even if they were reported to the headmaster, that good old sportsman would not be likely to inflict any punishment on them for merely strolling quietly along the bank of the old canal on a Sunday afternoon, even though they had been trespassing on the property of Mr. Lowden Beigh. "Having given up their names to the keeper the two boys proceeded to climb over the gate into the high road, and considering what they carried hidden under their coats, this was a somewhat ticklish operation.