Part 17 (1/2)

The longer the boy tried to drive them away, the bolder they became.

”I'll bet they know the boy hasn't a gun,” Tim exclaimed.

Now a very big crane defied the boy altogether. He walked boldly toward the boy, spreading his wings and uttering a loud croak.

”Look, look,” exclaimed Tim, ”he's going to bite the boy. Let's run and help him.”

”No, we mustn't,” argued Bill. ”Mr. Barker said we shouldn't scare the cranes. If that kid runs away from a crane, he deserves to be bitten.”

”I would run,” Tim acknowledged, ”if I had no gun.”

The boy was now actually running away with the crane after him, but falling over a furrow and seeing that he could not run away from the fighting crane, he picked up his stick and went hard at his pursuer. At this unexpected attack, the crane ran away, napped his wings and arose to join the flock at the other end of the field.

The boy started for home, looking back from time to time as if afraid that the big bird might be after him again.

”I wouldn't herd cranes,” said Tim, ”if they didn't give me a gun.”

The boys returned to camp in good time and about four o'clock the hunting actually began, for the big Canada geese began to fly over the timber to their resting place on a long sandspit below Inspiration Point.

”One rule,” Mr. Barker called, ”about this hunt. Don't fire at any bird that is too far off. We don't want to leave any wounded birds in the woods. Tim, you come with me. I'll tell you when to fire.”

The hunters walked back half a dozen rods, so they would not drop any birds below the cliff, and placed themselves about fifty yards apart on a line parallel to the crest of the bluff.

Half a dozen geese soon came flying just above the tops of the old oaks.

”Aim at the last one,” Barker told Tim. ”Take it from behind!”

Tim brought down a large fat goose.

”Good work!” exclaimed the trapper. ”Your shot went right in between the feathers. If you had fired at the bird from in front, the shot might have glanced off the heavy coat of feathers. 'Always aim at a single bird,' is also a good rule in wing-shooting. If you just fire wildly at the whole flock, you are likely to miss them all.”

Barker at once took up Tim's goose, saying, ”That will just furnish us a good supper with some bacon and corn bread.”

After the goose had been picked and drawn, he put a slender green pole through it, which he laid on two forked sticks close to a hot fire. When one side was partly cooked, he turned the other side to the fire. In this way he prepared a savory meal of wild goose roasted on the spit.

When it grew too dark to shoot, the hunters came in with six geese. Bill had had the bad luck of merely winging a bird, so that he was compelled to follow his game for nearly an hour. A wild goose is so protectively colored that among dead leaves and brush it can make itself almost as invisible as a sparrow.

When Bill finally captured his bird, it was almost dark and he had forgotten to watch the direction to camp; he was lost.

He fired two shots in quick succession.

”There is Big Boy,” Tatanka laughed. ”He is lost, Tim; shoot twice, so he can find home. He is hungry.”

Two shots fired close together means, ”I'm lost,” to hunters and woodsmen.

Of course Bill was not far from camp and he came home in time for supper.

”Bill,” his younger brother teased him, ”the next time you run after a goose, hang a cowbell on your neck, so we can tell where you go.”