Sport in an Untouched A merican Wilderness 



thought there were within a day's travel 

 of the place where we were camped. His 

 reply was: "Oh, don't know; supposem 

 five hundred." 



The guides, by the way, believe that the 

 loon cannot be shot, except by building 

 a fire on the shore, and shooting through 

 the smoke, as they think the loon dives at 

 the flash of the rifle. 



One day we began wantonly firing at 

 a loon with the 22-calibre. Every time 

 one of us would shoot, the bird would 

 dive, and remain down a long time. Fi- 

 nally we took a raft which we had made 

 for fishing purposes, and pushed out to 

 the centre of the little lake. By watch- 

 ing carefully we could shoot quickly 

 enough to keep the loon under water, and 

 soon it began to show signs of being short 

 of breath. But we marvelled at the great 

 distance that it could swim. Sometimes it 

 would come up a hundred and fifty yards 

 on one side of the raft, and the next time 

 two hundred yards on the other side. Fi- 

 nally it came up close to the raft, and my 

 companion killed it. As we were push- 

 ing out to pick it up, we suddenly saw 

 another loon come up on the other side. 

 Without knowing it, we had been keep- 

 ing two loons under water, supposing all 



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