The boys laughed exultingly as they displayed their prizes to the astonished Catharine, who, in spite of hunger, could not help regretting the death of the mother bird.

Girls and women rarely sympathise with men and boys in their field sports, and Hector laughed at his sister's doleful looks as he handed over the bird to her.
"It was a lucky chance," said he, "and the stone was well aimed, but it is not the first partridge that I have killed in this way.

They are so stupid you may even run them down at times; I hope to get another before the day is over.

Well, there is no fear of starving to-day, at all events," he added, as he inspected the contents of his cousin's hat; "twelve nice fresh eggs, a bird, and plenty of fruit." "But how shall we cook the bird and the eggs?
We have no means of getting a fire made," said Catharine.
"As to the eggs," said Louis, "we can eat them raw; it is not for hungry wanderers like us to be over nice about our food." "They would satisfy us much better were they boiled, or roasted in the ashes," observed Hector.
"True.

Well, a fire, I think, can be got with a little trouble." "But how ?" asked Hector.