46 Waterfowl. 



get their heavy bodies fairly off the water and out of 

 range, I had taken three more shots, but missed. Waiting 

 till the dead goose drifted into shore, I picked it up and 

 tied it on the saddle of my horse to carry home to the 

 ranch. Being young and fat it was excellent eating. 



The third goose I killed with the rifle was of a differ- 

 ent kind. I had been out after antelopes, starting before 

 there was any light in the heavens, and pushing straight 

 out towards the rolling prairie. After two or three hours, 

 when the sun was well up, I neared where a creek ran in 

 a broad, shallow valley. I had seen no game, and before 

 coming up to the crest of the divide beyond which lay the 

 creek bottom, I dismounted and crawled up to it, so as to 

 see if any animal had come down to drink. Field glasses 

 are almost always carried while hunting on the plains, as 

 the distances at which one can see game are so enormous. 

 On looking over the crest with the glasses the valley of 

 the creek for about a mile was stretched before me. At 

 my feet the low hills came closer together than in other 

 places, and shelved abruptly down to the bed of the val- 

 ley, where there was a small grove of box-alders and 

 cotton-woods. The beavers had, in times gone by, built a 

 large dam at this place across the creek, which must have 

 produced a great back-flow and made a regular little lake 

 in the times of freshets. But the dam was now broken, 

 and the beavers, or most of them, gone, and in the place 

 of the lake was a long green meadow. Glancing towards 

 this my eye was at once caught by a row of white objects 

 stretched straight across it, and another look showed me 

 that they were snow-geese. They were feeding, and were 



