Blacky The Crow didn't know what to think. He couldn't make himself believe that Farmer Brown's boy had really turned hunter, yet what else could he believe? Hadn't he with his own eyes seen Farmer Brown's boy with a terrible gun hide in rushes along the Big River and wait for Dusky the Black Duck and his flock to come in? And hadn't he with his own ears heard the “bang, bang” of that very gun?  
The very first thing the next morning Blacky had hastened over to the place where Farmer Brown's boy had hidden in the rushes. With sharp eyes he looked for feathers, that would tell the tale of a Duck killed. But there were no feathers. There wasn't a thing to show that anything so dreadful had happened. Perhaps Farmer Brown's boy had missed when he shot at those Ducks. Blacky shook his head and decided to say nothing to anybody about Farmer Brown's boy and that terrible gun.
 
You may be sure that early in the afternoon he was perched in the top of his favorite tree over by the Big River. His heart sank, just as on the afternoon before, when he saw Farmer Brown's boy with his terrible gun trudging across the Green Meadows to the Big River. Instead of going to the same hiding place he made a new one farther down.
 
Then came the hunter a little earlier than usual. Instead of stopping at his blind, he walked straight to the blind Farmer Brown's boy had first made. Of course, there was no one there. The hunter looked both glad and disappointed. He went back to his own blind and sat down, and while he watched for the coming of the Ducks, he also watched that other blind to see if the unknown hunter of the night before would appear. Of course he didn't, and when at last the hunter saw the Ducks coming, he was sure that this time he would get some of them.
 
But the sam............