54 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 



length of the meadow toward the end nearest me, 

 where the patch of small trees and brushwood lay. 

 A goose is not as big game as an antelope; still I 

 had never shot a snow-goose, and we needed fresh 

 meat, so I slipped back over the crest and ran down 

 to the bed of the creek, round a turn of the hill, 

 where the geese were out of sight. The creek was 

 not an entirely dry one, but there was no depth of 

 water in it except in certain deep holes; elsewhere 

 it was a muddy ditch with steep sides, difficult to 

 cross on horseback because of the quicksands. I 

 walked up to the trees without any special care, as 

 they screened me from view, and looked cautiously 

 out from behind them. The geese were acting just 

 as our tame geese act in feeding on a common, mov 

 ing along with their necks stretched out before them, 

 nibbling and jerking at the grass as they tore it up 

 by mouthfuls. They were very watchful, and one 

 or the other of them had its head straight in the air 

 looking sharply round all the time. Geese will not 

 come near any cover in which foes may be lurking 

 if they can help it, and so I feared that they would 

 turn before coming near enough to the brush to give 

 me a good shot. I therefore dropped into the bed 

 of the creek, which wound tortuously along the side 

 of the meadow, and crept on all fours along one of 

 its banks until I came to where it made a loop out 

 toward the middle of the bottom. Here there was 

 a tuft of tall grass, which served as a good cover, 

 and I stood upright, dropping my hat, and looking 

 through between the blades. The geese, still in a 



