242 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 



water. In the distance a red light showed where Olsen, the 

 squatter on section ten, thirty-two, forty, was lighting his fire. 



Listen ! You can hear the " qua-a-a-k, qua-a-k, quak " of the 

 mallard drake, the " eonk " of the goose, and the squeak of the 

 widgeon. There is another sound, more pervading and more 

 difficult to locate. It is the guttural roll of the letter R repeated 

 three times. Some sentinel of the plains is calling gru-r-r-r-r-ur — 

 gru-r-r-r-r-r-r-r — gru-r-r-r-r-r-r-r — and another is answering, and 

 a third from the grassy embrasure of his fort responds, heralding 

 the sunrise. Yet you cannot see the fort, nor locate it, nor say 

 whether 'tis near or far. But you feel it is one more new associa- 

 tion with the prairie, and a call you cannot yet answer. It is the 

 sand-hill crane grueling, to coin a word. It may come from a 

 mile away, or three miles, so deceptive is the distance, and yet it 

 pervades all the air. 



When the horses are unhitched and tied to the wheels, and 

 Billy the driver has wrapped himself in his blanket, and is smok- 

 ing his pipe with his back against the tongue of the wagon ; when 

 you and your comrades, incased in india-rubber leggings, are hid 

 away, one in a blind of sedge, and one on a musk-rat house, with 

 the oozy waters of the slough half-way up your thighs, taking what 

 is called "the enjoyment of ducking," perhaps you may see the 

 cranes come over you, moving their broad wings like geese, and 

 with their legs stretched out behind them, flying high in the au- 

 to some corn-field or open grass land. You may hold yourself coy, 

 but they will not come lower, but in a long irregular line, gurgling 

 their note from front to rear of their cohort, they will take their 

 course to their well-known feeding ground. 



When corn or wheat is stacked for the winter they visit the 

 stacks, and with their strong beaks and legs scatter and waste 

 more than they eat, until the farmer has to set a guard on his 

 stacks. In the late autumn they frequent the corn fields, and 

 placing sentries on the most prominent places, the remainder of 

 the flock will feed for an hour, when the sentries will be relieved 

 and other sentries take their places. 



Their bright colours, tall forms, and stately walk, make them 

 conspicuous on the prairies. Their shoulders stand three feet high, 



