For answer Gordon pulled out his watch for the twentieth time; then nodded reassuringly. "Of course they will," he answered. "In fact, it's pretty near--there, look! There they come now!" The girl peered through the screen of bushes that fringed the box. Sure enough, off to the southward, a flock of ducks was flying swiftly towards them. A moment more, and they swerved farther to the west. She heard Gordon swear softly under his breath, and strangled a hysterical desire to laugh. Then all at once the birds caught sight of the decoys. Just for an instant they seemed to hang motionless against the sky; then, with set wings, came on straight for the blind. The girl felt her heart leap with excitement; for, all in the same breath, she saw the flock wheel quickly, and Gordon rise to his knees. The little sixteen-bore cracked spitefully once--twice--and two of the flock, doubled up in mid-air as if struck by lightning, fell stone dead among the decoys, the others, towering high into the air, made off far to the westward and safety. Gordon, obeying the wild-fowler's first instinct, swiftly slipped in fresh shells, then turned to his companion, his eyes bright with the triumph of the hunter, his whole bearing alert, eager, confident. "Well," he queried briefly, "what do you think?--Look out, there they come again!" A second flock, larger than the first, was bearing down upon them. Just in time to escape detection, Gordon sank into the box. Again the birds swung, again Gordon rose, and again two ducks fell dead to the quick right and left of the little sixteen-gage. Twenty minutes passed. Fainter and fainter grew the light, until the sun sank low behind the pines, and the laughing blue and white waves turned sullen and gray. Together they left the blind, and, walking along the beach, Gordon began to gather up his spoils. Poor little wild ducks, there they lay, rising and falling as the tiny waves splashed gently against the shore, as if vainly seeking to rouse them once more to flight. No, they would never fly again; quietly enough they lay there, their bright, glossy feathers stained with a faint crimson, their wild, bright eyes closed in death. With a swift revulsion of feeling the girl knelt over a mallard duck and drake, the little brown mate by some trick of fate, with her dusky head lying across the neck of her bright-plumed lord. "Oh, the poor darlings!" she cried pitifully. "Oh, Dick, we can't wish them alive again."