So with a gay exchange of badinage they took their turns when the dogs rounded up singles; and sometimes he missed shamefully, and sometimes he performed with credit, but she never amended his misses nor did more than match his successes, and he thought that in all his life he had never witnessed more faultless field courtesy than this young girl instinctively displayed.  Nothing in the world could have touched him more keenly or convinced him more thoroughly.  For it is on the firing line that character shows; a person is what he is in the field—­even though he sometimes neglects to live up to it in less vital moments.

Generous and quick in her applause, sensitive under his failures, cool in difficulties, yielding instantly the slightest advantage to him, holding her fire when singles rose or where there could be the slightest doubt—­that was his shooting companion under the white noon sun that day.  He noticed, too, her sweetness with the dogs, her quick encouragement when work was well done, her brief rebuke when the red dog, galloping recklessly down wind, jumped a ground-rattler and came within a hair’s breadth of being bitten.

“The little devil!” said Hamil, looking down at the twisting reptile which he had killed with a palmetto stem.  “Why, Shiela, he has no rattles at all.”

“No, only a button.  Dig a hole and bury the head.  Fangs are always fangs whether their owner is dead or alive.”

So Hamil scooped out a trench with his hunting-knife and they buried the little ground-rattler while both dogs looked on, growling.

Cardross and Gray had remounted; Bulow cast out a brace of pointers for them, and they were already far away.  Presently the distant crack of their guns announced that fresh bevies had been found beyond the branch.

The guide, Carter, rode out, bringing Shiela and Hamil their horses and relieving the latter’s pockets of a dozen birds; announcing a halt for luncheon at the same time in a voice softly neglectful of I’s and R’s, and musical with aspirates.

As they followed him slowly toward the wagon which stood half a mile away under a group of noble pines, Hamil began in a low voice: 

“I’ve got to say this, Shiela:  I never saw more perfect sportsmanship than yours; and, if only for that, I love you with all my heart.”

“What a boyish thing to say!” But she coloured deliciously.

“You don’t care whether I love you—­that way, do you?” he asked hopefully.

“N-no.”

“Then—­I can wait.”

She turned toward him, confused.

“Wait?” she repeated.

“Yes—­wait; all my life, if it must be.”

“There is nothing to wait for.  Don’t say such things to me.  I—­it’s difficult enough for me now—­to think what to do—­You will not speak to me again that way, will you?  Because, if you do, I must send you away....  And that will be—­hard.”

“Once,” he said, “you spoke about men—­how they come crashing through the barriers of friendship.  Am I like that?”