They reached Brown Hall a bare two minutes before the doors closed, and hurried through a light breakfast. Ten o’clock found them walking briskly along the Morrisville road, some four miles from college, having crossed the river by the county bridge and turned to the left through the little town of Kirkplain, which is opposite Centerport. Allan wore a white sweater, over which he had pulled an old coat; the pockets of the latter were bulging with shells. Pete wore a canvas hunting-coat and carried his cartridges in a belt. The Winchester was slung over his shoulder, and altogether he made a formidable appearance. Allan had the shot-gun. Tommy had refused to accompany them, pleading, as ever, a press of business; Hal had taken himself off to the bosom of his family. So far they had seen nothing to shoot at save a red squirrel. Allan had impulsively sought to bring that down, but had failed for the excellent reason that he had forgotten to load. The squirrel had seemed to appreciate the humor of the incident and had chattered in their faces from the bough of a dead maple-tree. Allan had been glad afterward that the gun hadn’t gone off. The blunder reminded Pete of a parallel case in his own experience, and he had told it so well that Allan had been forced to sit on a rock in order to recover from his fit of laughter. This story led to others. Pete proved a perfect mine of interesting narratives on hunting adventure, some of them laughable, some of them so exciting that Allan forgot how heavy the shot-gun under his arm had become. When they struck the cross-roads, some three miles from Kirkplain, they were in the best of spirits. They took the road to the left, which leads down to the river and the ferry to Harwich. At the ferry they left beaten tracks and followed the river-bank. The travel was slower now, both because they had to break their way through underbrush, make detours around inlets, cross brooks, and climb an occasional fence, and because they were keeping their eyes open for game. Allan had never done much hunting, and he was becoming quite excited at the prospect. Pete led the way, forcing his big body through the bushes with scarce a sound, while Allan could make no progress without causing enough disturbance to frighten any self-respecting duck a mile distant. Pete seemed to realize this fact, for he frequently looked back at Allan with pursed lips and violent shakes of his head, and then glanced anxiously at the river. After a half mile of this, Pete stopped in a little clearing and leaned his rifle against a bush. Allan joined him, very much out of breath. “See anything?” he panted, hoarsely. Pete shook his head.