Never mind," he added, catching up the owl, and throwing it over his shoulder, "I'll be ahead of you yet." This generous rivalry had existed between the cousins from their earliest boyhood.

In all athletic sports--such as running, ball-playing, swimming, and the like--Archie was acknowledged to be the superior; but in hunting Frank generally carried off the palm.
Archie, however, perseveringly kept up the contest, and endeavored to accomplish, by bold and rapid movements, what his cousin gained by strategy; and, although he sometimes bore off the prize, he more frequently succeeded in "knocking every thing in the head" by what the boys called his "carelessness." This was the source of a great deal of merriment between the cousins; and, although they sometimes felt a little mortified at their defeat (as did Archie now), they ever afterward spoke of it as a "good joke." After breakfast the boys went into the shop again, and Frank sharpened his knife, and began to remove the skin of the owl, intending to stuff it and place it in the museum, while Archie took his ax and started for a grove of willows, that grew on the banks of the creek, to get some timber to make a dead-fall trap.

He had been gone scarcely a moment before he returned in a great hurry, and, throwing down his ax, seized his gun, which stood in the corner behind the door, exclaiming, "Now I've got a chance to make up for losing that owl.

A flock of ducks, regular canvas-backs, have just flown over, and I think they lit in the swamp.

You'll have to make tracks to get the start of me this time." And he shouldered his gun, and ran out of the shop, banging the door after him.
Frank immediately dropped the owl, caught up his gun, and started in hot pursuit.