THE WILD GOOSE. 323 



It is such days as these in Dakota, the rule rather 

 than the exception all through the autumn that gives 

 to goose-shooting there one of its chiefest charms. 

 Despite the inevitable disappointment that often comes 

 in the pursuit of these wary, uncertain birds, there is, 

 nevertheless, that absence of excessive fatigue more or 

 less encountered in the hunting of almost ony other game 

 bird. It is a decided contrast to the suffocating heat and 

 eternal mosquito-fighting one must endure in search of 

 the long-billed woodcock; or the climbing, exhausting 

 work after that noble bird, the ruffed grouse; or the 

 blinding, burning heat of an August day on prairie 

 chickens; or the wearisome tramp, tramp, after the zig- 

 zag snipe which always is flying " zag" when your shot 

 goes "zig;" or the briers and thorns and tiresome march 

 to secure the little brown Bob Whites; or the cold, wet, 

 mud and general discomforts of duck-shooting. It is so 

 great a contrast to all these, that goose-shooting, when 

 the game is fairly plentiful, may be termed a deliciously 

 lazy sport, but one which, while it does not exhaust the 

 physical being, tires the mind and tests the nerve as few 

 things can. In some respects, it is like standing on a 

 deer-drive. The birds come to you; you do not go to 

 them. But when they do come, aye, there's the rub. 

 To lay in some large stubble-field on one of these lovely 

 October days, with just enough breeze sweeping across 

 the prairies to render the air fragrant and bracing, gives 

 to one who is a lover of Nature an indescribable sense of 

 pleasure that nothing can take away. It matters little 

 whether he has a feather to show for his afternoon's out- 

 ing, he has enjoyed himself, and that thoroughly, and 

 his evening meal and night's rest is the sweeter there- 

 for. While this is true of all field sports to a certain 

 extent, yet the pure air and bright sun of the Dakota 

 prairies on an autumn day gives to the hunter a certain 



