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 y^arj, 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, tii-es 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 



