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The next minute the pot was in a blaze, and the man raised it above his head to hurl it right upon us, but it dropped straight down into the sea close to the junk, and the man staggered away with his hands to his face, into which he must have received a good deal of the charge of duck-shot with which my piece was charged.
This chase was not successful; but early one morning, going to look for wild geese in the water-meadow with his long-barrelled gun, he saw something in a lonely rickyard. Creeping cautiously up, he rested the heavy gun on an ash stole, and the big duck-shot tore its way into the stag's shoulder. Those days were gone, but still his interest in shooting was unabated.
"For the first year after our arrival in Aimy's village," says Rutherford, "we spent our time chiefly in fishing and shooting; for the chief had a capital double-barrelled fowling piece, as well as plenty of powder and duck-shot, which he had brought from our vessel; and he used to entrust me with the fowling-piece whenever I had a mind to go a shooting, though he seldom accompanied me himself.
His first two chambers were loaded on purpose with duck-shot cartridges. Twice the big gun roared; twice the fire flashed red from its smoking mouth. As the smoke cleared away, the natives, dumb with surprise, and perfectly cowed with terror, saw ten or a dozen torn and bleeding birds float mangled upon the water.
"When the day was come for our departure, I started along with the rest, being armed with my mery, a brace of pistols, and a double-barrelled fowling-piece, and having also with me some powder and ball, and a great quantity of duck-shot, which I took for the purpose of killing game on our journey.
We stopped a moment to give them our barrels with duck-shot, and then jumped into our saddles and rode for it. Unfortunately, we had been foolish enough to go out without our revolvers. They pressed us hard, but I was never in fear of their actually catching us; my only alarm was that one of us might repeat my disaster of the armadillo hole.
Nothing now was visible of him but the tips of his horns, and a small strip of the hide that covered his ribs. A shout from the boat proclaimed the victory. "Ah, Mr Slick," said the doctor, "what could you have done with only a charge of duck-shot in your gun, eh? The arrow, you see, served for shot and bullet.
"The bear now discovered us, and advanced towards us; and John, not seeing him for the bush, ran along the beach towards him. The weariness from pulling all night, and having eaten no food, made me lose my presence of mind, for I now remembered that the gun was only loaded with duck-shot, and you might as well meet a bear with a gun loaded with peas.
Viushin unslung his double-barrelled fowling-piece, and proceeded to pepper him with duck-shot; Dodd tugged at his revolver with frantic energy while his horse ran away with him over the plain; the Major dropped his bridle, and implored me by all I held sacred not to shoot him, while the horses plunged, kicked, and snorted in the most animated manner.
Sometimes they came upon great masses of snakes, intertwined and coiled like worms; in these cases Cortlandt brought his gun into play, raking them with duck-shot to his heart's content. "As the function of these reptiles," he explained, "is to form a soil on which higher life may grow, we may as well help along their metamorphosis by artificial means."
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