They had brought a supply of hard bread to last for a few days.
When that should give out, they would draw upon their bag of flour; and when this, too, should be exhausted, it was their intention to go without bread altogether, as they had often done on like excursions before.
While thus enjoying their pigeon-soup and picking the bones of the plump birds, the attention of all three was suddenly arrested by a movement near one side of the glade.

They had just caught a glimpse of something that looked like a flash of yellow light shooting up in a straight direction from the ground.
All three guessed what it was--the lightning passage of a squirrel up the trunk of a tree; and there was the animal itself, clinging flat against the bark, having paused a moment--as is usual with squirrels-- before making another rush upward.
"Oh!" cried Lucien, in a suppressed voice, "it is a fox-squirrel, and such a beauty! See! it is marked like a tortoise-shell cat! Papa would give twenty dollars for such a skin." "He shall have it for far less," rejoined Francois, stealing towards his gun.
"Stop, Francois!" said Lucien.

"Let Basil try it with his rifle--he is a surer shot than you." "Very well," replied Francois; "but if he should miss, it's no harm for me to be ready." Basil had already risen, and was silently making for the guns.

On reaching them, he took the long rifle, and turned in the direction of the game.

At the same moment Francois armed himself with his double-barrel.
The tree up which the squirrel had run was what is termed a "dead-wood." It was a decaying tulip-tree--scathed by lightning or storm--and stood somewhat apart from the others, out in the open ground.