CHAPTER XXX.
A GIRL AND A GUN.
A short distance beyond the place where Kate had been left, there was a small by-path; and when, still carefully carrying her gun, she reached this path, Kate stopped.

Here would be a good place, she thought, to wait for game.

Something would surely come into that little path, if she kept herself concealed.
So she knelt down behind a small bush that grew at a corner of the two paths, and putting her gun through the bush, rested the barrel in a crotch.
The gun now pointed up the by-path, and there was an opening in the bush through which Kate could see for some distance.
Here, then, she watched and waited.
The first thing that crossed the path was a very little bird.

It hopped down from a twig, it jerked its head about, it pecked at something on the ground, and then flew up into a tree.

Kate would not have shot it on any account, for she knew it was not good to eat; but she could not help wondering how people ever did shoot birds, if they did not "hold still" any longer than that little creature did.
Then there appeared a small brown lizard.