224 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV 
they felt they were getting too much inland, or suspected 
a trap in front. Then the boats came up from behind 
and the geese crowded on. 
They didn’t like going. Sometimes the leading geese 
would stop and wheel about, heading right into the mass. 
But the boats came on. 
No sooner had the boats passed our position than 
we rose, and Uano set to work at once to polish off 
the few that had hid themselves about us. He slew 
some with a toss of the ‘parlka’; some that lay till 
almost trodden on he knocked on the head as they sat. 
He couldn’t make me out. ‘Quick,’ he cried, ‘kill 
them quick. Uano old; you young, you. Good goose, 
goose good, very good’—but I could not harden my 
heart to kill wild geese like that. So he shouted for 
Ustynia, his wife. And Mrs. Uano, ordinarily so com- 
posed and kindly, came flying across to us like a mad 
thing. The way that woman went on! She hunted 
round like a hound, she hurled her ‘ parlka,’ she dropped 
full length upon the squatting goose, and rose triumph- 
ant and screaming with laughter with the goose in her 
embrace. 
But the boats came steadily on. Every moment I 
looked to see the brent escape by diving, or expected 
some to rise, for it was plain enough that many were 
full-winged. Neither of these things they did; only like 
a pack of idiots they ‘wanked’ and swam along. 
But the grey geese dived. The bean and the white- 
