“Can you reach your rifle easily? If you can, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t get a gazelle if you have a chance. I’m not much of a believer in mere shooting for the sake of shooting, but I don’t go to extremes, and a gazelle more or less won’t make much difference to the desert fauna. There is such a thing as sport. What I hate is the kind of so-called sportsman who takes a delight in seeing how many he can ‘bag.’” “I can get at my rifle in a second, Uncle George,” said the boy eagerly, “but we’re not going near the shore of the lake, are we?” “Not so very close,” the professor replied. “The road keeps well to the east.” “Could Antoine and I break away from the trail, on the chance of getting a shot?” “I’ll see,” his uncle replied, and called Michawi. With Wyr as interpreter a few minutes of animated conversation occurred and then the scientist said: “Very well, Perry, as long as you promise not to go along the shore to the south at all, I don’t see that you can get lost. We’ll be on the ledge above, and probably can see you, any way.” “Bully!” cried the lad, and went to get his gun. Branching away from the main caravan, Perry and Antoine turned their camels’ heads away from the upward slope out of the valley of the Fayum and turned westwards towards the lake. They scared up a large pale-colored Egyptian hare, but with his uncle’s warning against unnecessary slaughter, the lad did not shoot it. He asked just one question: “I suppose we have a specimen of that rabbit in the museum, Antoine, haven’t we?” “Oh, yes, yes, quite common,” said the other, and the hare was allowed to jump away unmolested. A little desert fox, or fennec, which had been lurking near by, evidently with designs upon the hare, also was frightened by the approach of the camels and darted away in a different direction. But Perry was after gazelle and nothing else would serve. At last, towards the end of the afternoon, when already they had reached the reedy edge of the Birket-el-Qurun, Perry heard a low whistle from Antoine, and saw a small object streaking like the wind along the shore. He jumped off the camel, without waiting for it to kneel, nearly falling on his nose as he did so, and though the gazelle was going so fast that it seemed foolish to try, raised the rifle to his shoulder and fired. “By jiminy, I hit him,” cried the lad, as he saw the little creature roll over and over in the sand. He ran up to it. The shot had been well placed and the gazelle had died without pain and without a struggle. “Yes, yes, good shooting,” said Antoine, as he came up. “Good horns, too.” There was regret as well as triumph in the boy’s glance as he looked down at the graceful, slender creature, which a moment before had been full of life. But he was no sentimentalist and recognized the difference between shooting for a definite purpose and wanton slaughter.