Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 89.djvu/544

 Hunting the Mud Pigeon

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��A squad moving up. The three men in tJie rear have fired and are moving. When the iirst man has fired at five clay birds he will walk around the squad to the first position

��FIVE Strong men stood in a row, armed with guns and evidently much interested in something that was going to happen in the httle house out in front of them. There was not much to the little house. It stood possibly a foot and a half high at the back end, toward the shooters, and six inches higher at the front. Six feet would span its length, four feet its width. It wasn't much more than a good substantial cover to the entrance to a c\-lone-cellar.

The strong man on the right end of the line raised his shotgun and pointed it apparently at the top of the little house. He snuggled his face to the stock, then he barked something that sounded like "Pull," and from the shelter of the little house, fleeing straight awa>' from the line of men there sped a little black and yellow saucer. It rose as it tra\e!ed, and in the wink of an eye it was far higher than our heads and farther from the little house than the distance to the row of men.

Then the gun cracked, and the lleeing

��disk sudtlenK' Hew into a cloud of black bits. They say it takes shot a little lime to cover a distance, but the black and yellow saucer smashed up almost before the gun barked.

The next man repeated the per- formance, only the little saucer came out from a different direction, sneaking off swiftly to the right and away from the line, but not so swifth' that the shot didn't catch u|) with it and end its career. The third sneaketl out the opjiosite way, to the left, and it sped on, imharmed in spite of the crack of the gim. The man grinned a bit and shook his head, but nobody spoke. So the shoot went on until iinally we liegan to look at the machinery that made the saucers hiss so swiftly out of the house at the word of command.

IIozc the Clay Birds arc Launched

A few yards back of the center man of the row there stoo<l a bo\- with an iron lever in his grasp. The ujiper end reached to his waist, the lower end disappe.ired in the ground. I'min nur

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