Page:A Wild-Goose Chase - Balmer - 1915.djvu/31

Rh with a needle or pin or something. They took that material to cover records which might get wet. It was wound up and tied to the bird's leg. It could have come down from the Arctic so; I know it could."

"What came with it?" Geoff repeated.

"Oh, this. It came by post this morning; the box with the bird came this afternoon. Of course I couldn't make anything out of it till the box came, then I tried to telephone you all over town. But I couldn't find you till you went to the club."

Geoff took the letter which she extended. It was a square, ordinary envelope bearing the postmark, dated two days before, of a small Louisiana town near the Gulf. It was addressed in the careful, courtly characters of an old man. Geoff took out the inclosure and read:

"Miss (or Mrs.) Margaret Sherwood.

": A darky of mine, Sam Negus, went goose shooting in the marshes about here to-day and brought back fourteen geese of two varieties. When he was showing