Waterfowl 55 



row, with several yards' interval between each one 

 and his neighbor, were only sixty or seventy yards 

 off, still feeding toward me. They came along quite 

 slowly, and the ones nearest, with habitual suspicion, 

 edged away from the scattered tufts of grass and 

 weeds which marked the brink of the creek. I tried 

 to get two in line, but could not. There was one 

 gander much larger than any other bird in the lot, 

 though not the closest to me; as he went by just op- 

 posite my hiding-place, he stopped still, broadside 

 to me, and I aimed just at the root of the neck for 

 he was near enough for any one firing a rifle from 

 a rest to hit him about where he pleased. Away 

 flew the others, and in a few minutes I was riding 

 along with the white gander dangling behind my 

 saddle. 



The beaver meadows spoken of above are not 

 common, but, until within the last two or three 

 years, beavers themselves were very plentiful, and 

 there are still a good many left. Although only 

 settled for so short a period, the land has been known 

 to hunters for half a century, and throughout that 

 time it has at intervals been trapped over by whites 

 or half-breeds. If fur was high and the Indians 

 peaceful quite a number of trappers would come in, 

 for the Little Missouri Bad Lands were always 

 famous both for fur and game; then if fur went 

 down, or an Indian war broke out, or if the beaver 

 got pretty well thinned out, the place would be for- 

 saken and the animals would go unmolested for 

 perhaps a dozen years, when the process would be 



