Winter Adventures of Three Boys | Page 8

To please the old man, Mr Ross filled a
beautiful calumet and presented it to him as a gift in addition to his
wages, for his thoughtful care of the dogs while under his charge at the
island. For some minutes he smoked his new pipe in silence. Indians
are the least demonstrative people in the world, and Kinesasis was one
of them. He was never known to say "Thank you" in his life, and yet
none could be more grateful or pleased than he to have his faithful
services thus recognised. Mr Ross thoroughly understood him, and the
grateful look in his expressive eyes as he received the pipe from Mr
Ross's hand was all that was expected or that would be received.
Without one word of reference to the pipe, Kinesasis began about the
wild geese. Here is his story, which was a sort of monologue. He said:
"I have been much thinking about it, and I feel that it is my fault that
the young geese could not go south with the old ones when the call
came in the voice of the North Wind that it was time to go. I well
remember that last spring, when in the big boat I carried the dogs out to
the island, we saw some geese flying around that island where we
caught the young ones to-day. We could not get a shot at the old geese

then, they were so wary, but we pulled ashore, and there among the
rushes we found some nests full of eggs. Of course, we took the eggs
and ate them. No doubt those old geese when they returned, after we
had gone, were very angry at our taking the eggs, but they were not
discouraged, and so they went to work and filled up their nests with
another setting of eggs and hatched them out. But they had lost a full
month of time, and there was not enough warm weather left for these
broods of young geese to grow strong to rise up in the air when the call
came to fly away to the South Land."
For a few minutes he puffed away vigorously at his calumet, and then
continuing his story said: "Wild geese are strange things. I have hid
myself from them and watched them years ago, when they were more
plentiful and hatched their young at many places around our lakes and
rivers here. Then we had only bows and arrows, and so did not kill as
many as we do now. Their greatest enemies were the foxes, but no fox
would dare attack a goose on her nest or a brood of young ones if the
old gander were around. One blow of his powerful wing would kill any
fox. I have found dead foxes that have thus been killed."
Then, looking up, the old Indian said, in a voice that showed he was
deeply impressed by what he was uttering: "There was always some
strange mystery about their call to go south and their leaving. To-day
they would be acting as though they would be intending to stay with us
all the time. They were all very quiet and only busy in getting their
food, while the old ones were alert against their enemies, and would
even risk their lives to defend their young ones. Then to-morrow would
come, and there was such a change in them. They were all so excited
and noisy; their cries filled the air. The old ones would stretch their
wings and circle round and round in the air about their young ones and
encourage them to follow. Soon all of them would rise up and up, and,
starting away for the South Land, we would see them no more that year.
And yet not all, for sometimes there were late broods, like the one we
found to- day. They came too late to be strong enough to fly. They
could not go, and here is the mystery to me. Why was it that the parent
geese, that yesterday would risk their lives in fighting against wild
animals to save their young, would to-day, when the call came to go,

leave their young broods behind them to perish? They all did it. Never
was an old goose known to stay behind when the call came. That voice
was louder and stronger than was even the love for their offspring. Can
any of you tell old Kinesasis why it is so?"
CHAPTER THREE.
SELECTING THEIR DOGS--VARIOUS METHODS OF BREAKING
THEM IN--FRANK'S SUCCESS BY KINDNESS WITH
MONARCH--SAM'S TROUBLES WITH SPITFIRE-- CONQUERED
AT LAST--TRAINING AND CAPTURING DOGS WITH
DOGS--ALEC'S TRAIN OF PART STAGHOUNDS.
With this question of the old Indian ringing in their ears the party in the
kitchen broke up, and as the day