"Now for something for dinner! You go first, Mark, and let them have both barrels sharply--one after the other." "Let what have them ?" "The pigeons.

Creep on yonder softly, and you will soon come upon them--a flock of pigeons feeding in one of the trees." Mark went on as silently as he could, and the major kept back the two animals and waited a minute--five minutes, ten minutes--and then softly followed, to find the lad at the edge of a glade watching a flock of great lavender-hued and feather-crowned pigeons, as big as fowls, feeding in the most unconcerned manner.
The major did not hesitate for a moment, but fired at the spot where the birds were thickest, and again as they rose with whirring and flapping wings in a little flock.
Three went down at his first discharge, two at his second; and Mark started as if he too had been shot.
"You here, sir ?" he said.
"Yes.

Why didn't you shoot ?" "I forgot to," said Mark hesitatingly; "and I was admiring them." "Yes, admirable, my young naturalist!" said the major.

"But we are sent out here to find food for so many hungry people; and these are glorious eating." "Yes; I forgot," said Mark, helping to collect the birds, which were tied by the legs and hung over the trunk of a tree, as the stream would act as their guide on their return.
Then going on, the little rapids and falls in the tiny river showed that they must be steadily rising, but at so slow a rate that it soon became evident that, unless the country opened out, they would not reach the mountain that day.
At the end of a couple of hours, though, when they paused to rest and began refreshing themselves with some fruit similar to a large nut, but whose interior contained a couple of kernels imbedded in custard, they found themselves quite upon a hill, with a valley dipping down below along which the streamlet came, and beyond these the mountain-slope rose, so that they had a good view of the cone, with the film of cloud still rising, but looking almost transparent in the bright sunrise.
"There ought to be pigs here," said the major; "but it does not seem as if we shall see any.

But look yonder; there's another of those fruit-trees, with pigeons feeding beneath.