Page:To Alaska for Gold.djvu/132

114 not ventured a second round at the balance of the flock.

"These ought to make good eating," observed Randy, as he picked up the game. "That is, if they don't taste too fishy. Here is my bullet hole, right through the neck. You killed the other two."

With the dead geese over their shoulders, they continued their hunt for game, and presently stirred up a number of wild birds, at which Earl blazed away, bringing down five. The birds were small and hardly worth the trouble of cleaning and cooking, yet they took them along.

"Geese, eh?" exclaimed Captain Zoss, as they entered camp. "Wall, that's not so bad! We kin have a goose pot-pie o' one, and stuff the other with bread an' beans, eh?" All hands agreed this would be an excellent plan, and the boys set about cleaning the game without delay, the captain assisting them at the work.

Toward night they espied a band of Indians coming down the trail with their packs and followed by half a dozen miners, a hardy but not an evil-looking crowd. The miners had left Dyea twenty-four hours later than themselves and had brought with them the material for a flat-bottomed scow, fifteen feet long and four feet wide. The Indians had carried this material over the Pass, but how it had been accomplished was a mystery to the boys and the others.