288 SPORT INDEED 



course, are enthusiasts in sporting. Their number is 

 limited to twenty, each member being entitled to in- 

 vite one guest. Four members only are permitted to 

 be here at one time, and, as the shooting lasts five 

 weeks, each set with their guests have one week's fun. 

 At dinner in the little hotel at Chatham we met the 

 party, who had preceded us, returning to the " Hub " 

 with seventy-four brant, bronzed cheeks and ravenous 

 appetites. 



Four guides are engaged by the club. They are 

 men who thoroughly know the habits of the birds, 

 understand the tides and currents and handling of 

 boats, and also know how to shoot. 



One of them has been continuously at the business 

 of " guidin' " for thirty-one years. During all that 

 time he missed only two days one when he attended 

 a funeral and the other when he had to go to court. 

 The care of family, the tender offices of friends, the 

 seductions of courtship, the excitement of the play or 

 the circus none of these has any allurement for the 

 weather-beaten, blue-eyed and kindly men when once 

 the branting season opens. During the rest of the 

 year they earn a precarious living by fishing and 

 wrecking. They watch the shifting sands, the gloomy 

 fogs and the blinding snowstorms with earnest so- 

 licitude, for this is truly a dangerous place for 

 the unwary mariner. During a recent winter the 

 fine steamer Cottage City, running from Portland, 



