152 WILD LIFE AND THE CAMERA 



as I might to conceal myself, there was nearly 

 always a bird in some unexpected place that would 

 get his eye on me and immediately inform every 

 goose in the lake that a fool man was crawling 

 on his stomach among the sand dunes mth the 

 apparent intention of doing harm. ISIeanwhile I, 

 completely ignorant of the fact that a spy had 

 given away my plans, would continue crawHng 

 laboriously through the sand and briars and scrubby 

 brush, not daring so much as to raise my head 

 above the cover until the place was reached where 

 I had seen the geese. With hope in my heart — 

 and hope is really the chief asset of the camera 

 himter — I would open my camera, and with every- 

 thing ready for instant action quickly rise, only 

 to find before me a beautiful \aew of blue water 

 and sand dunes, while far away in the middle of 

 the lake my geese sat quietly chuckhng to each 

 other as they saw how I had been outwitted. An 

 hour's hard work had gone for nothing, and as I 

 emptied the sand from my shoes and pockets, I 

 thought very unprintable things about geese in 

 general and about those geese in particular. 



JNIy efforts at baiting vdth corn proved only 

 fairly satisfactory, except to the crows, which 

 ate most of it. For three days I sat crouched in 

 a clump of low bushes while my bones ached, and I 

 watched geese. Once they came within a hundred 

 yards and then turned away because a crow flew 

 over my head, and, seeing me, called out to the 

 geese that a man was there. In this way he drove 

 them away and had the corn to himself — truly a 

 case of disinterested friendship I Another day I 



