David was standing close beside a fence which ran between the brier-patch and a stubble-field. He looked over into the field when he heard the notes of warning, and saw a flock of quails running through the stubble, and directing their course toward a little thicket of bushes that grew on the banks of a bayou near by. Had Dan Evans been there with that shot gun in his hands, he would have blazed away at once, and could hardly have failed to kill or wound three or four of the flock, so closely were they huddled together. That was the kind of a hunter Dan was; but David, having learned what he knew of bird shooting from Don Gordon, who was a thoroughbred young sportsman, would have allowed the game to go off scot free before he would have made a “pot shot” at them. Shooting on the wing requires skill on the part of the hunter, and gives the game the best chance for its life; and this was the method David always adopted. He lifted the pup over the fence, got over himself, and with a waive of his hand and a “Hie on, old boy!” walked toward the spot where the flock had last been seen. The dog seemed to understand him perfectly, and was off like a shot. Of course he would not quarter the ground in obedience to a motion of the boy’s hand--he had not learned that yet--but he searched the stubble thoroughly, and when he struck the trail of the running flock, he began to follow it up like an old dog. Suddenly he stopped and stood as motionless as if he had been turned into stone. He was pointing a quail hidden in the stubble almost under his nose. David walked up, flushed the bird, and when it was in the air stopped it as neatly with his old rusty gun as any champion shot could have done it. Then the training of the dog began. He did not drop to shot nor did he come to heel when ordered to do so; and these things, together with many others, must be taught him before he could be called an educated bird dog. With perfect confidence in David’s ability to break him to his owner’s entire satisfaction, we will leave him to the enjoyment of his afternoon’s sport, and go back to Godfrey and Dan, whom we left walking down the road toward the steamboat landing. “I say, Dan,” exclaimed Godfrey, as soon as they were out of hearing of David and his mother, “ye wouldn’t mind goin’ over to the gen’ral’s an’ axin’ some of his niggers fur the loan of a shovel fur a few days, would ye? We hain’t got nothin’ to dig up that thar bar’l with. Ye needn’t mind tellin’ what we want it fur, ye know. If anybody axes ye, ye might say yer mother’s poorly from the fever’n ager, an’ ye want to dig up some yarbs to make her some tea.” “All right,” said Dan. “I’ll go.” “I wish I had a dollar,” continued his father. “Thar’s goin’ to be a shootin’ match fur beef down to the landin’ this arternoon, an’ if I could go in, I’d be a’most sartin to win one of the hind-quarters. Thar hain’t many can beat me shootin’, thar hain’t.”