AND OTHER HUNTING ADVENTURES. 69 



on a lively conversation in goose Latin, probably 

 about any fool who would try to kill geese at that 

 distance. I turned loose on them again, and in about 

 a second after pulling the trigger one of them seemed 

 to explode, as if hit by a dynamite bomb. For a few 

 seconds the air was full of fragments of goose, which 

 rained down into the water like a shower of autumn 

 leaves. My red companions enjoyed the result of this 

 shot hugely, and a canoe load of Indians from up 

 river, who were passing at the time, set up a regular 

 war whoop. We pulled over and got what was left of 

 the goose, and found that my express bullet had 

 carried away all his stern rigging, his rudder, one 

 of his paddles, and a considerable portion of his 

 hull. The water was covered with fragments of sail, 

 provisions of various kinds, and sundry bits of cargo 

 and hull. Charlie picked up so much of the wreck 

 as hung together, and said in his broken, laconic 

 English: 



" Dat no good goose gun. Shoot him too much 

 away." 



There were plenty of ducks, coots, grebes, and 

 gulls on the river, and I had fine sport with them 

 whenever I cared to shoot. 



A mile above where I killed the goose we entered 

 a long reach of shoal rapids, where all the brawn 

 and skill of the Indians were required to stem the 

 powerful current and the immense volume of water. 

 The rapids are over a mile long, and it took us nearly 

 two hours to reach their head. As soon as we were 

 well into them we came among large numbers of live, 

 healthy salmon. Many of them were running down 

 the stream, some up, while others seemed not to be 



