Page:Castlemon--Joe Wayring at Home.djvu/201

 obeyed the game laws when he was alone in the woods. They had. not much respect for him if he did. They could not lay claim to any great skill themselves. An October grouse on the wing would have been as safe from harm a dozen yards away from the muzzles of their double-barrels, as though he had been on the other side of the globe. They always killed their game sitting; and they would shoot at a robin as soon as they would shoot at a wild turkey.

"We didn't come down here, to go home hungry," said Joe, pointing to a bunch of squirrels that lay at the foot of the nearest tree. "We'll have two courses to our dinner or breakfast, or whatever you call a meal eaten at this time of day, and there's plenty of water in the spring to wash it down with."

The boys were all hungry, and there was nothing appetizing in looking forward to a breakfast of meat and fish. Joe Wayring and his friends did not mind it, for they had eaten many such meals during their vacation wanderings in the woods; but Tom Bigden was not much accustomed to roughing it, and he