Following my
second's instructions perfectly, I looked neither to the right nor to
the left, not even watching Orme. I heard the confusion of low talk back
of us, and knew that a large crowd had assembled, but I did not look
toward the row of carriages, nor pay attention to the new arrivals which
constantly came in. We shot on steadily, and presently I lost a bird,
which came in sharply to the left.
The heap of dead birds, some of them still fluttering in their last
gasps, now grew larger at the side of the referee, and the negro boys
were perhaps less careful to wring the necks of the birds as they
gathered them. Occasionally a bird was tossed in such a way as to leave
a fluttering wing. Wild pigeons decoy readily to any such sign, and I
noticed that several birds, rising in such position that they headed
toward the score, were incomers, and very fast. My seventieth bird was
such, and it came straight and swift as an arrow, swooping down and
curving about with the great speed of these birds when fairly on the
wing. I covered it, lost sight of it, then suddenly realized that I must
fire quickly if I was to reach it before it crossed the score. It was so
close when I fired that the charge cut away the quills of a wing.
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