uspecting _mafus_ are plodding on their way, the
bands are hovering on the outskirts among the hills until the time
is ripe to strike.

I have learned that these brigand scouts are my best protection, for
when a foreigner arrives at a country inn all other subjects of
conversation lose their interest. Everything about him is discussed
and rediscussed, and the scouts discover all there is to know.
Probably the only things I ever carry which a bandit could use or
dispose of readily, are arms and ammunition. But two or three guns
are hardly worth the trouble which would follow the death of a
foreigner. The brigands know that there would be no sham battle with
Chinese soldiers in that event, for the Legations at Peking have a
habit of demanding reparation from the Government and insisting that
they get it.

As a _raison d'etre_ for our trip Caldwell and I had been hunting
ducks, geese, and pheasants industriously along the way, and not
even the "boys" knew our real destination.

We had looked forward with great eagerness to the Tai Hai, a large
lake, where it was said that water fowl congregated in thousands
during the spring and fall. We reached the lake the second night
after leaving Feng-cheng. Darkness had just closed about us when we
crossed the summit of a high mountain range and descended into a
narrow, winding cut which eventually led us out upon the flat plains
of the Tai Hai basin. While we were in the pass a dozen flocks of
geese slipped by above our heads, flying very low, the "wedges"
showing black against the starlit sky.

With much difficulty we found an inn close beside the lake and,
after a late supper, snuggled into our fur bags to be lulled to
sleep by that music most dear to a sportsman's heart, the subdued
clamor of thousands of waterfowl settling themselves for the night.

At daylight we dressed hurriedly and ran to the lake shore. Harry
took a station away from the water at the base of the hills, while I
dropped behind three conical mounds which the natives had
constructed to obtain salt by evaporation.

I was hardly in position before two geese came straight for me.
Waiting until they were almost above my head, I knocked down both
with a right and left. The shots put thousands of birds in motion.
Flock after flock of geese rose into the air, and long lines of
ducks skimmed close to the surface, settling away from shore or on
the mud flats near the water's edge.

No more birds came near me,