102 THE WORLD OF ICE.

Fred, being unaccustomed to the use of fire-arms,
took a wavering aim and fired.

“What a bother! Pve missed it!”

“Try again,” remarked Tom with a quiet smile, as
the whole cliff vomited forth an innumerable host of
birds, whose cries were perfectly deafening.

“It’s my opinion,” said Fred with a comical grin,
“that if I shut my eyes and point upwards I can’t
help hitting something; but I particularly want yon
fellow, because he’s beautifully marked. Ah! I see
him sitting on a rock yonder, so here goes once
more.”

Fred now proceeded towards the coveted bird in
the fashion that is known by the name of stalking—
that is, ereeping as close up to your game as possible,
so as to get a good shot; and it said much for his
patience and his future success the careful manner in
which, on this occasion, he wound himself in and out
among the rocks and blocks of ice on the shore in the
hope of obtaining that sea-gull. At last he succeeded
in getting to within about fifteen yards of it, and
then, resting his musket on a lump of ice, and taking
an aim so long and steadily that his companion began
to fancy he must have gone to sleep, he fired, and
blew the gull to atoms! There was scarcely so much
as a shred of it to be found.

Fred bore his disappomtment and discomfiture man-
fully. He formed a resolution then and there to be-
come a good shot, and although he did not succeed
exactly in becoming so that day, he nevertheless man-