ugh the lower part of the neck, fell dead by the
side of her wounded mate, which, frightened by the report, hastened to
increase the distance between him and such a dangerous neighborhood.

"I'll save you a half-mile run, Kennedy," said La Salle, raising "the
Baby" to his face.

The wounded bird suddenly paused, drew himself up to his full height,
and spread his wings, or rather his uninjured pinion. The huge gun
roared. The closely-packed _mitraille_ tore the icy crust into powder,
fifty yards beyond the doomed bird, which settled, throbbing with a
mortal tremor, upon the ice, shot through the head.

"That was a splendid shot of yours, La Salle," said Kennedy, in
amazement.

"You are wrong in that statement, Kennedy," replied he. "The shot any
one could have made, but the reach of that gun, with Eley's cartridge,
is something tremendous. When I first had her I fired at a flock at
about four hundred yards distance. Of course I killed none, but I paced
three hundred and twenty-five yards, and found clean-cut scores, four
and five inches long, in the crust, at that distance; and I have more
than once killed brant geese out of a flock at forty rods."

"Look, Charley! What a sight!" interrupted Kennedy. The sky had cleared,
the sun shone brightly, the wind had gone down, and the strange
stillness of a calm winter's day was unbroken. From the west high above
the reach of the heaviest gun, and almost beyond the carry of the rifle,
came the long-expected vanguard of the migrating hosts of heaven. Flock
upon flock, each in the wedge-shaped phalanx of two converging lines,
which ever characterize the flight of these birds, each headed by a
wary, powerful leader, whose clarion call came shrill and clear down
through the still ether, came in one common line of flight, hundreds and
thousands of geese. All that afternoon their passage was incessant, but
no open pool offered rest and food to that weary host, and in that fine,
still atmosphere it was useless to attempt to deceive by crude
imitations of the calls of these birds. And so, as the leaders of the
migratory host saw from their lofty altitude the earth below, for many a
league, spread out like a map, from which to choose a halting-place, the
marksmen of the icy levels had little but the interest of the unusual
spectacle for their afternoon's watching. Now and then, in answer to
their repeated calls, a single goose would detach itself from the flock
and scale down through