The rifle was raised; then lowered. The hunter walked around the
tree. Presently up in the tree top, snug under a knotty limb, he
spied a little ball of gray fur. Grasping a branch of underbush, he
shook it vigorously. The thrashing sound worried the gray squirrel,
for he slipped from his retreat and stuck his nose over the limb.
CRACK! With a scratching and tearing of bark the squirrel loosened
his hold and then fell; alighting with a thump. As the hunter picked
up his quarry a streak of sunshine glinting through the tree top
brightened his face.
The hunter was Joe.
He was satisfied now, for after stowing the squirrel in the pocket
of his hunting coat he shouldered his rifle and went back up the
ravine. Presently a dull roar sounded above the babble of the brook.
It grew louder as he threaded his way carefully over the stones.
Spots of white foam flecked the brook. Passing under the gray,
stained cliff, Joe turned around a rocky corner, and came to an
abrupt end of the ravine. A waterfall marked the spot where the
brook entered. The water was brown as it took the leap, light green
when it thinned out; and below, as it dashed on the stones, it
became a beautiful, sheeny white.
Upon a flat rock, so near the cascade that spray flew over him, sat
another hunter. The roaring falls drowned all other sounds, yet the
man roused from his dreamy contemplation of the waterfall when Joe
rounded the corner.
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