at each other, when they're
drawing off their flocks, but they'll stand back to back against any
outsider. Yes, I've watched them a long time, and I've never yet seen
them do anything a man would be ashamed of. Why, I'd like to see the
wild goose on the back of the Canadian flag!"

I wondered if Canada were worthy, but didn't say so.

It is rather too fine an event to go often to Jack Miner's. The deeper
impressions are those which count, and such are spontaneous. They do not
come at call. One feels as if breaking into one of the natural
mysteries--at first glimpse of the huge geese so near at hand--a
spectacle of beauty and speed not to be forgotten. They are built long
and clean. Unlike the larger fliers as a whole, they need little or no
run to rise; it is enough to say that they rise from the water. You can
calculate from that the marvellous strength of pinion. And they are
continental wing-rangers that know the little roads of men, as they know
the great lakes and waterways and mountain chains--Jack Miner's
door-yard and Hudson's Bay.

"I'd give a lot to see one right close, Jack," said I.

"You don't have to. Come on."

He took me to a little enclosure where a one-winged gander was held.

"He came home to me with a wing broken one Sunday," said Jack. "It was
heavy going, but he managed to get here. I thought at first we'd have
some goose, but we didn't. The fact is, I was sort of proud that he came
home in his trouble. I took the wing off, as you see. He's doing fine,
but he tried to drink himself to death, as they all do. That appears to
be the way they fix a broken wing. It may be the fever or the pain;
anyway, they'll drink until they die. I kept this fellow dry, until he
healed."

The splendid gamester stretched out his black head and hissed at
me--something liquid and venomous in the sound--the long black beak as
fine and polished as a case for a girl's penknife. He was game to the
core and wild as ever.... Jack hadn't let him die--perhaps he felt out
of the law because of that.

"I'll go and do my chores," Jack Miner said. "You can stay and think it
out."

I knew from that how well he understood the same big thing out of the
past which the wild bird meant to me. He had the excellent delicacy
which comes from experience, to leave me there alone.

An hysterical gabble broke the contemplation. Waddling up from behind
was a tame goose. The shocking thing was too fat and slow to keep itself
clean--i