142 CRUISINGS IN THE CASCADES 



En route home I had about two hours to wait at 

 Port Moody for the boat. There were great numbers 

 of grebes and ducks in the bay, and I asked the dock 

 foreman if there was any rule against shooting there. 

 He said he guessed not ; he had never seen anyone 

 shooting there, but he guessed there wouldn't be any 

 objection. I got out my rifle and two boxes of cart- 

 ridges and opened on the birds. The ducks left at 

 once, but the grebes sought safety in diving, and as 

 soon as the fusillade began a number of gulls came 

 hovering around, apparently to learn the cause of 

 the racket. I had fine sport between the two, and a 

 large audience to enjoy it with me. In ten minutes 

 from the time I commenced shooting all the clerks 

 in the dock office, all the freight hustlers in the 

 warehouse, all the railroad section men, the ticket- 

 agent and baggage-master, numbering at least 

 twenty men in the aggregate, were clustered around 

 me, and their comments on my rifle and shooting 

 were extremely amusing. Not a man in the party 

 had ever before seen a Winchester express, and the 

 racket it made, the way in which the balls plowed 

 up the water, and the way the birds, when hit, van- 

 ished, in to thin air and a few feathers, were myste- 

 ries far beyond their power to solve. At the first lull 

 in the firing .half a dozen of them rushed up and 

 wanted to examine the rifle, the fancy finish and 

 combination sights of which were as profoundly 

 strange to them as to the benighted Indians. They 

 soon handed it back to me, however, with the request 

 to resume hostilities against the birds ; they pre- 

 ferred to seethe old thing work rather than to handle 

 it. The gulls were soaring in close, and six shots, 



