322 UPLAND SHOOTING. 



or morning flight, was all that was necessary to secure 

 splendid shooting. Decoys were not then necessary, and 

 a blind or other artificial place of concealment by no 

 means indispensable. You could fairly ' ' knock 'em 

 down with clubs," so plentiful they were, and so little 

 hunted. They were a terror and a source of annoyance 

 to farmers, picking out the seed-grain in the spring, and 

 making a ten-acre field of corn, in the fall, look as though 

 visited by a hail-storm. It was no uncommon occurrence 

 for the geese to completely ruin a field of corn in from 

 two to three days' time, leaving so little that it was not 

 worth gathering. Even nowadays, an isolated piece of 

 corn, left uncut and not shocked, is apt to fare badly at 

 their hands or bills, rather. 



My first experience with wild geese in Dakota was in 

 the fall of 1883, the locality the same as that in which I 

 had my morning' s experience with the white geese. A 

 fellow sportsman whom I will call Tom and myself 

 had been told by a farmer acquaintance that large num- 

 bers of geese came into his wheat-stubble every after- 

 noon "thousands of 'em," he said. The next afternoon 

 found us in the immediate vicinity about 2.30 o'clock. 

 We knew the field by a fresh stack of straw on its edge; 

 then, too, we knew the place because there was no other 

 stubble for several miles around. The spot was an ele- 

 vated piece of prairie, in full view of White Lake a 

 great resort for ducks and geese and a more likely place 

 for the sport could hardly be conceived. The day, too, 

 was a grand one one of those perfect October days, rarely 

 seen in greater loveliness and more thoroughly enjoyed 

 than upon the broad, sweeping prairies of Dakota. The 

 air was heavily impregnated with that pure, invigorating, 

 life-giving ozone for which Dakota is so justly famous, 

 and a better day for the anticipated sport could not well 

 have been chosen. 



