WILD GEESE, CRANES, AND SWANS. 211 



I had gone in a sort of air-hole, which, being 

 covered with broken ice and snow, I had not 

 perceived. The river was twenty feet deep, and I 

 came near being drowned. However, by means 

 of the gun in one hand and the three geese in 

 the other, I got such a spread on the ice that 

 I did not go clean under. Two of my com- 

 panions were so scared by the suddenness of the 

 occurrence and the danger of the situation that 

 they could do nothing. The other got an old 

 ten-foot rail, and, shoving it to me, enabled me 

 to struggle to the bank, gun, geese, and all. The 

 cold was so intense that my clothes were all frozen 

 stiff the minute after I was out of the water. It 

 was three miles to a house and a stove, and 

 before we got there I was like a solid six-foot 

 chunk of ice. I then got on dry clothes, wrap- 

 ped myself in a blanket, took a seat by the fire, 

 and drank half a pint of strong whiskey, neat. 

 I was soon all right again ; but when the blood 

 began to circulate in the numbed parts, the pain 

 was intense for the time. I did not even take cold 

 from that ducking. 



Being much in the water, however, in the West- 

 ern country, entails something worse than a cold, 

 if not worse than rheumatism. I mean the ague. 



