ls, crows, ravens, and eagles were continually passing, with clouds
of shags or cormorants, which nested on the rocks a mile or so down the
bay, together with numbers of oyster-birds, whale-birds, and other
strange fowl of the outlying coast.

Each night and morning also there passed up the lagoon a stream of
honking and chattering wild-fowl, the largest of which and most
valuable, though least attainable, were the great Canada geese, which
frequented this part of the island in large numbers.

"If only we could get hold of some of those fellows," said John,
longingly, one morning, as they saw an especially fine flock pass slowly
up toward the head of the lagoon. "I'll warrant they'd be good to eat.
See, some of them can hardly fly yet, they're so young."

"Yes," said Jesse, "if we had only thought of it last week, they
probably would not have been able to fly at all--flappers, they call
those young birds. Then we might possibly have killed some of them in
the grass at the head of the lagoon."

"We could kill all we wanted now with the rifles," commented Rob; "but,
as I said awhile ago, I don't think we ought to use rifle ammunition for
killing birds. No one can tell how much we may need our cartridges later
on. No, I don't think we will get any geese unless we can catch them
with our hands. I haven't much faith in those throwing-cords that
Skookie was showing us."

John turned to his friend Skookie. "S'pose you catch-um geese, Skookie?"
he asked.

The Aleut boy surprised them very much by his sudden use of English.

"Sure!" he said. He had perhaps learned this word from associating with
whites somewhere down the coast.

His prompt reply made them all laugh, but none the less it was of yet
greater interest than this.

"How do you mean, Skookie?" asked Rob. "How can you catch a goose when
you have no gun? You can't get close enough."

It was always a problem how much English the Aleut understood or did not
understand. Now he made his answer by diving into the back of the
barabbara and coming out with the curious bunch of thongs which the boys
had noticed him carrying when they first encountered him on the beach--a
dozen thongs attached to a common centre, each being a couple of yards
in length, and each bearing at its extremity a perforated ivory ball
perhaps of an ounce or so in weight.

"Well, that don't look very much like a goose-hunt to me," said John;
"but it seems to me I've read about the Eskimos usin