nd are not to be trifled with. They are very
fierce, and will sometimes, when thus treed, if furious with hunger, or
driven from their young, spring down into the midst of the hunters and
fight like tigers. When the boys had secured a good position, and each
knew which wild cat he was expected to kill, Mustagan gave the signal,
and together the reports of their guns rang out. The cat at which Sam
had fired at once dropped to the ground, stone dead. The other did not
move, much to the chagrin of Alec, who could not understand how he
should have missed him. Just as Frank raised his gun to fire Mustagan's
quick eye saw what the boys did not, and so before Frank could fire he
stopped him by saying:

"That cat is dead; do not waste another bullet on it. You only more
injure his skin."

And so it was; when the body was at length obtained it was found that
Alec's bullet had hit him squarely behind the fore shoulder and had gone
clean through his body, of course killing him so suddenly that there was
not even that muscular quiver which generally causes animals, when thus
killed, to fall to the ground. This was what actually happened to the
one that Sam shot.

Paulette soon after made his appearance, dragging the wolverine. They
were all delighted with the morning's work. Mr Ross and the boys
hurried back to the camp and speedily dispatched an Indian with a dog-
train and empty sled for the game. While some skinned these animals,
others spent the day in killing additional muskrats, and then after
supper, as soon as the snow had frozen hard again and the glorious moon
was well up in the heavens, the home trip was commenced. Loaded down as
they were, they did not travel as fast as they had done in the outward
trip, and so it was about daybreak when they reached Sagasta-weekee.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

NISKEPESIM, THE GOOSE MOON--EXCITEMENT AMONG THE INDIANS--THE FIRST
GOOSE--THEIR NORTHERN MIGRATIONS--FEEDING GROUNDS--METHODS OF HUNTING
THEM--NESTS--DECOYS--OUR BOYS OFF WITH THE INDIANS--THE SHOOTING
GROUNDS--THEIR CAMP--GREAT SUCCESS--FRANK'S QUEER ACCIDENT--HIT BY A
DEAD GOOSE--SAM'S COMMENTS--LADEN WITH SPOILS.

Not many days after the return from the muskrat hunt the weather became,
for that land, decidedly warmer. This created so much excitement among
the generally stoical Indians that the boys could not but observe it.
So one day, when a number of them were at Sagasta-weekee, Sam asked
Mustagan the cause