Where The Wild Goose Waits

AND ONE MORE MAKES SIXTY

We were in the middle of one of three hides spread across two miles of shoreline that day. Dr. Rieveschl and Harold McGregor, hunting a mile to the northwest of us, got their limit of five geese each by 10:30. Harry Loynd, Irving Winkler and Nick Laskaris were hunting to our southeast with Jimmy Cheecho. They had 10 more by noon. By then I had three geese and my day's limit of eight ducks, mallards and pintails.

In the next two days the score of geese mounted and mounted until, on the third afternoon, our last in camp, 48 geese had been shot, of which four had been roasted for dinner one night; 16 more would fill the 10-geese possession limits for our six licenses.

The hunters went out at 4 that last afternoon and in an hour had 15 geese. One to go. If a flock came in, who would shoot?

Jimmy Cheecho spotted the answer—a lone goose hundreds of yards away, high, bound for somewhere far. Jimmy piercingly invited him in. The goose kept going on. Jimmy pleaded and cajoled, held out he alone knew what inducements and one of them touched this goose at least momentarily. He turned toward the hide, looking down, 200 yards, 100, 80—and then in a manner plainly saying to hell with it he banked abruptly and went the other way. No one will ever know what Jimmy Cheecho said to that goose then, but it was different from any other call, strident and insistent, a direct order. The goose obeyed. He banked again, set his wings, coasted in. He was the 60th.