OF A RANCHMAN 77 



very watchful and wary, and as I came 

 toward the place where I thought they were 

 1 crept along with as much caution as if the 

 game had been a deer. At last, peering 

 through a thick clump of bullberry bushes 

 I saw them. They were clustered on a high 

 sandbar in the middle of the river, which 

 here ran in a very wide bed between low 

 banks. The only way to get at them was to 

 crawl along the river-bed, which was partly 

 dry, using the patches of rushes and the 

 sand hillocks and drift-wood to shield my- 

 self from their view. As it was already late 

 and the sun was just sinking, I hastily re- 

 treated a few paces, dropped over the bank, 

 and began to creep along on my hands and 

 knees through the sand and gravel. Such 

 work is always tiresome, and it is especially 

 so when done against time. I kept in line 

 with a great log washed up on the shore, 

 which was some seventy-five yards from the 

 geese. On reaching it and looking over I 

 was annoyed to find that in the fading 

 light I could not distinguish the birds clearly 



