Part 7 (2/2)

”Here are our decoys,” said La Salle, pointing to several dark objects partially imbedded in the ice, but marking an almost perfect straight line from the boat to the inner sh.o.r.e of the island.

”We had a rather narrow escape,” remarked Kennedy, picking up one of the decoys; ”and it was well thought of to secure a retreat to our boat, in case we had failed to reach the sh.o.r.e.”

Little time, however, was lost in conversation. The ”boat” and ”box”

were to be cleared of the snow which had drifted inside, and concealed by fragments of ice, in place of those which the rain had melted away.

The decoys were to be rearranged, heading to windward, and at least half an hour was consumed in making these necessary arrangements. At last all was ready, the guns, ammunition, &c., were placed in the boat, and La Salle had gone to hide the sledge behind a neighboring hummock, when, turning his head, he saw Davies and Creamer running hastily to their box, and Kennedy frantically gesticulating and calling on him to do the same.

With the best speed he could make on such slippery footing, La Salle crossed the intervening s.p.a.ce, and threw himself down into the boat, panting and breathless with exertion. After a moment's breathing s.p.a.ce, he slowly raised his head so that his eyes could just see over the edge of the shooting-boat. To the east he heard the decoy-calls of Creamer and Davies, and, somewhere between himself and them, the low, questioning calls of the wished-for geese.

”They are near us somewhere, Kennedy,” he whispered, ”and, I guess, coming in to our decoys. Don't fire until I tell you. Here they come.

No, they sheer off. Yes, there's one scaling down; there's another.

They're all coming. We've got them now.”

The goose is far from being the silly fowl which popular belief supposes him to be, even when tamed and subdued, and, in a state of nature, is one of the most wary of birds. The flock in question, flying in from the narrow, open channels of the Gulf, had seen the decoys, and heard the calls of Ben and Creamer, who had not yet completed their preparations.

Swooping around the box at a safe distance, the wary leader decided that all was not right there, and swung over the leading decoys of La Salle, and doubtless wondering at the apathy of the strange geese which refused to answer his calls, gave a signal which caused his flock to describe a circle around the boat, full forty rods away. Still nothing could be seen which could warrant a well-founded suspicion; and one or two of the younger birds, impatient of restraint, and anxious for rest and food, set their broad pinions, and, with outstretched wings, scaled down to the decoys, alighting on the ice not twenty feet from the muzzles of the concealed guns. Their apparent safety decided the rest, and in twenty seconds as many geese, with clamorous cries, were hovering over the heads of La Salle and his companions.

It takes a quick eye, steady hand, and good judgment, to kill a partridge in November, when, with a rush of wings like an embryo whirlwind, he gets up under your feet, and brushes the dew from the underbrush with his whizzing wings. It is not every amateur that can kill woodc.o.c.k in close cover, or well-grown snipe on a windy day; but there are few, who can do these things, who can kill with both barrels in their first goose-shooting. The size and number of the birds, the wary and cautious manner of their approach, the nice modulations necessary to ”call” them successfully, and the reckless sweep with which they seem to throw aside all fear, and rush into the very jaws of death,--all these combine to unsettle the nerves and aim of the novice.

All this Kennedy experienced, as he saw above him twenty outstretched necks, with jetty heads, whose eyes he felt _must_ discern the ambush; twenty snowy bellies, against which as many pairs of black, broad, webbed feet showed with beautiful effect, and forty broad pinions, which seemed to shut out the sky from view, and present a mark which no one could fail to hit. At the word he pointed his heavy gun at the centre of the thickest part of the flock and fired. At the first barrel a dead bird fell almost into the boat; but the second seemed without effect. La Salle ”lined” four as they flapped their huge wings hurriedly, striving to flee from the hidden danger, killing three and breaking the wing of a fourth, who fluttered down to the ice, and began to run, or, rather, to waddle rapidly away.

Kennedy seemed about to go after the wounded bird, but La Salle laid his hand on his arm.

”Don't move, Kennedy, and he will get us another bird,” said he, reloading his heavy gun with a long-range shot cartridge. ”We can get that bird any time; and there is his mate flying round and round in a circle.”

”You won't get a shot at her,” said Kennedy, as she warily kept out of ordinary range, and finally alighted near the gander, which, weak with pain and loss of blood, had lain down on the ice about one hundred and fifty yards distant.

”I should not despair of killing her with 'the Baby,' charged as she now is, even at a far greater distance; but I have a surer weapon for such a mark in this target-rifle.”

As he spoke, he drew from under the half-deck of the boat a heavy sporting-rifle, carrying about sixty b.a.l.l.s to the pound, and sighted with ”globe” or ”peep” sights. Taking a polished gauge which hung at his watch-chain, he set the rear sight, and, c.o.c.king the piece, set the hair-trigger. Noiselessly raising the muzzle above the gunwale, he ran his eye along the sights. A whip-like crack echoed across the ice, and the goose, pierced through the lower part of the neck, fell dead by the side of her wounded mate, which, frightened by the report, hastened to increase the distance between him and such a dangerous neighborhood.

”I'll save you a half-mile run, Kennedy,” said La Salle, raising ”the Baby” to his face.

The wounded bird suddenly paused, drew himself up to his full height, and spread his wings, or rather his uninjured pinion. The huge gun roared. The closely-packed _mitraille_ tore the icy crust into powder, fifty yards beyond the doomed bird, which settled, throbbing with a mortal tremor, upon the ice, shot through the head.

”That was a splendid shot of yours, La Salle,” said Kennedy, in amazement.

”You are wrong in that statement, Kennedy,” replied he. ”The shot any one could have made, but the reach of that gun, with Eley's cartridge, is something tremendous. When I first had her I fired at a flock at about four hundred yards distance. Of course I killed none, but I paced three hundred and twenty-five yards, and found clean-cut scores, four and five inches long, in the crust, at that distance; and I have more than once killed brant geese out of a flock at forty rods.”

”Look, Charley! What a sight!” interrupted Kennedy. The sky had cleared, the sun shone brightly, the wind had gone down, and the strange stillness of a calm winter's day was unbroken. From the west high above the reach of the heaviest gun, and almost beyond the carry of the rifle, came the long-expected vanguard of the migrating hosts of heaven. Flock upon flock, each in the wedge-shaped phalanx of two converging lines, which ever characterize the flight of these birds, each headed by a wary, powerful leader, whose clarion call came shrill and clear down through the still ether, came in one common line of flight, hundreds and thousands of geese. All that afternoon their pa.s.sage was incessant, but no open pool offered rest and food to that weary host, and in that fine, still atmosphere it was useless to attempt to deceive by crude imitations of the calls of these birds. And so, as the leaders of the migratory host saw from their lofty alt.i.tude the earth below, for many a league, spread out like a map, from which to choose a halting-place, the marksmen of the icy levels had little but the interest of the unusual spectacle for their afternoon's watching. Now and then, in answer to their repeated calls, a single goose would detach itself from the flock and scale down through the air, as if to alight, but nearly always would repent in time, and with quickened pinions return to its companions.

Still, occasionally, one would determine to alight, and setting its wings, circle around one of the stands, and finally be seen, by the occupants of other ice-houses, to sweep close in to the concealed ambush. Then would follow a puff or two of smoke, a few distant reports, and the dead bird, held up in triumph, would convey to his distant friends the sportsman's fortune.

Several birds fell in this way to the lot of our friends of the East Bar, and La Salle and Kennedy got one each; but the sport was too tedious, and La Salle, taking a bullet-bag and powder-flask from his box, proceeded to count out ten bullets, which he laid carefully before him.

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