274 SPORT INDEED 



12-bores, their retrieving spaniels and their Irish 

 setters. 



The town hasn't over two hundred inhabitants, yet 

 it boasts of a large hotel, which, in the hunting sea- 

 son, reaps a bountiful harvest from the pockets of the 

 lots of men who know how to shoot — as well as from 

 the pockets of lots of them that don't. 



The migratory wild fowl make their way down 

 from the far north in countless multitudes, feeding 

 on the wheat-fields and ponds in the early morning 

 and late evening, and resting in the centre of some 

 lake large enough to keep them from out the reach of 

 the deadly breech-loader during the day. 



The flights of geese are something wonderful, and 

 it is even more wonderful that so few of them are 

 shot. But there is no bird more wary or suspicious 

 than the Canada goose. They will settle nowhere 

 without first carefully looking the ground over. From 

 the height at which they fly, and in the rarified at- 

 mosphere of the prairies, they can see for miles, and 

 carefully avoid any moving object, especially if it be 

 that of the human form. 



We had spent several days there before we were 

 able to discover the fields on which they were feeding. 

 When we did find the place it was literally covered 

 with their droppings and their breast feathers. We 

 selected a suitable spot, dug two luxurious pits, fixed 

 the edges up with wheat stubble as carefully as possi- 



