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As he was consoling himself with this thought a rough-looking man in overalls hastened up. He carried a shotgun. "Get off my turnip land," he shouted to the crowd, "or I'll fill some one full of birdshot." The crowd scattered, and old Schmidt among them; but the man with the shotgun was on him in two jumps.
"Huh!" snorted Horatio Juggins, skeptically, "I've always heard that ghosts don't mind ordinary birdshot any more'n an alligator would. But then fetch it along, Owen; it'll no doubt make us feel a little better when we find ourselves up in that terribly lonely tract of country. And who knows but what there might be a stray wildcat abroad in those woods.
Fur Thief, do you? Well, mind how you tempt me to let fly with a charge of birdshot. I've got a quick temper, and a quicker finger in the bargain; so settle back where you are." The man muttered between his set teeth. He was evidently feeling far from comfortable, because something told him these wideawake lads would not be so easily hoodwinked as he had fancied.
Game and other birds would make a hunter's paradise if it were not for the snakes and tigers, which are unpleasant to an American when his piece is loaded with only birdshot. "In the towns on the sea the fish are excellent, and an important industry is curing and smoking them for the markets.
The cuspidor had been restored to one corner of the large room, and to this corner Rooney, like a man with a jaw full of birdshot, always walked first. When he turned back to face his chief his face had lost its haunted expression, and he answered with solemn cheer, "On time," or "Fourteen minutes late," as the case might be.
"Huh!" snorted Horatio Juggins, skeptically, "I've always heard that ghosts don't mind ordinary birdshot any more'n an alligator would. But then fetch it along, Owen; it'll no doubt make us feel a little better when we find ourselves up in that terribly lonely tract of country. And who knows but what there might be a stray wildcat abroad in those woods.
From behind the empty shanty appeared the thin old negro, bareheaded, his shotgun at his shoulder, a striking figure against the rising moon. The young man descended from the fence into the field. There came a flash and a crack from Pop Thornberry's gun. The youth felt the sting of a piece of birdshot in his leg.
This was the old father, who lay in prison till he died. The capricious cruelty of Ismael was beyond anything I had ever heard of. One day I was out shooting and was attacked by a dog whom I saluted with a charge of small birdshot, on which the owner made complaint to the pasha that I had peppered accidentally one of his children.
Beset and roughly buffeted by the gale; the snow settling in rippling drifts in the folds of his clothing and upon his shoulders clinging like a cloth; his face cut by clouds of sand flung horizontally with well-nigh the force of birdshot from a gun: he bowed to the blast and plodded steadily on.
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