MIXUP WITH THE LAUGHERS 223 



beaks were plain against their ruddy gray plu- 

 mage, till their white face-crescent that gives 

 them their name, till their eyes 



"Now, Mack!" 



I bobbed up with the kodak set and ready, 

 pointed it toward the flock, and glanced at Andy. 

 His gun was directed toward the southward, and 

 I turned the lens around in that direction also. 

 No time to adjust the eye to the finder, but only 

 to point at them generally, and — bang! I saw 

 the leading goose collapse, and I pressed the 

 shutter release. Bang! and the flock was tit- 

 tering hysterically far out of range, and two of 

 their number were dead in the stubble. 



But another flock was already in sight. In 

 fact they were so close that while I was getting 

 the next film in position, Andy deemed it too 

 risky to attempt to retrieve the dead birds and 

 left them as they fell. The new flock came in as 

 well as the preceding, but very considerately 

 swung up to Rob's pit instead of ours. I held 

 myself down till they were almost over him ; then 

 I rose and held the finder upon them, and when 

 the crash of the guns burst out, I pressed the re- 

 lease. The net result, as far as could be judged 

 at the time at least, was one dead goose. Rob 



