ards, before a change of the ice
revealed a small flock of seven geese, quietly feeding along the border
of a low piece of field ice. Cocking his gun and laying it ready to
hand, La Salle drifted nearer and nearer, keeping barely enough headway
to steer her, bow on. The gander, a noble bird, suddenly raised his head
to gaze at the advancing boat. All the rest instantly raised theirs
ready for immediate flight. The anxious sportsman lay motionless,
ceasing the play of his scull, and the birds, gradually relaxing their
necks, turned and swam rapidly away.

Still, La Salle tried not to pursue, and the gander, finding that the
boat did not get any nearer, stopped, looked, started, stopped, and
went to feeding again, followed in all things, of course, by his
companions. Then the delicate oar began its noiseless sweep, and
gradually the sharp prow crept nearer, passing, one by one, sluggish
floes and fantastic pinnacles, until again the wary leader raised his
head as if in perplexity and doubt. There, to be sure, was the bit of
ice he had taken fright at before, nearer than ever; but it floated as
harmlessly as the cake just beside it, from whose edges he had gleaned
rootlets of young and tender eel-grass not half an hour ago. So the poor
overmatched bird doubtless argued; and ashamed of his fears, which were
but too well founded, and doubtful of his instincts, which he should
have trusted, the gander turned again to the little eddy of sea-wrack
amid which, with soft guttural love-calls, he summoned his harem to many
a dainty morsel.

Triumphantly shone the deadly eye which glittered beneath the snowy cap;
noiselessly swung the ashen oar, and as unerringly set as Destiny, and
remorseless as Death, the knife-like bow slid through the black waters.
One hundred, ninety, eighty, seventy, fifty, forty yards only, divide
the doomed birds from the boat, and the white gunwale is hidden from
their view by the interposition of the very floe along whose edge they
are feeding. Steadily La Salle drives the prow gently against the ice,
then drops his oar, and grasps his heavy gun. He hazards a glance: the
birds, scarce thirty yards away, are unsuspectingly feeding in a close
body; he rises to a sitting posture, raises his gun, and whistles
shrilly and long. Instantly the birds raise their heads, gathering
around their leader. Bang! The thunder-roll of the report, reverberating
amid the ice, is the death-sentence of the flock. Not one esca