30 OUT WITH THE BIRDS 



ture. He held himself down till he saw the ko- 

 dak aimed at him; then he got out of there as 

 suddenly as if he had been kicked, and by the 

 time the shutter clicked, he was just a vanishing 

 white whiz. 



Four o'clock, and the willow-fringed creek 

 was crossed ; and the road swung around west of 

 the lake, then turned south toward the sand- 

 hills — the same that had been shimmering on the 

 horizon, a few short hours earlier. Now it was 

 evident that the farmer spoke truth, for far 

 ahead some three miles, just above the hill-tops, 

 a dark thread hung in the air and moved west- 

 ward: the gray geese had started for their feed- 

 ing-grounds. Soon came another and another 

 flock, some near, others far distant, till over a 

 dozen flocks were in sight, all stringing out west- 

 ward against the breeze. 



It was good now to put down the pack and 

 lie on the sunny side of a sand-hill top, and 

 watch them come — tittering laughers, whose 

 black-mottled breasts shone grandly in the 

 sunlight; black-necked grays and glistening 

 waveys whose wild yells stir the blood, just as 

 they quickened the heart of the dusky-skinned 

 hunter, who a hundred generations ago crouched 



