214 OUT WITH THE BIRDS 



" There are your geese! " laughed Andy, with 

 much conviction; and after such a third-degree 

 morning, I was almost ready to confess that I 

 had been seeing things. However, just to sat- 

 isfy ourselves, or to be explicit, I should say 

 myself, that I had been duped and the thought 

 was not pleasing at all, either we drove off 

 southward, knowing that if any geese were really 

 in that part of the country, they must pass within 

 eyeshot when they returned to the lake in the 

 forenoon. 



"There they are!" 



As usual Andy was the first to get his eye on 

 them. We had mounted a slight ridge along 

 the edge of a threshed field, and there out on the 

 stubble, a quarter of a mile distant, a goodly 

 concourse of grays were feeding quietly, so we 

 swerved off to the nearest hay-stack, and made 

 camp. Camp-making at such times consists of 

 putting the outfit on the lee, and if possible, the 

 sunny side of the stack, tethering a horse to each 

 wheel, and giving them a feed of oats, and then 

 unpacking everything from the box of the demo- 

 crat. For experience in the past has taught us 

 that the best-behaved horse on the farm is not to 

 be trusted beside the loaded rig. He gets lone- 



