Snap was not long getting the big duck-gun down from its peg on the beam, nor long in loading it with a great charge of shot as big as small peas.
'It ain't like shooting quail, you see,' said Wharton, 'these wavies want almost as much killing as a grizzly.'
'What are you going to take, Dick?' asked Snap.
'Oh, I'll just take the Winchester,' replied his friend; 'you let me have the first cut at them with a ball, and then as they get up let 'em have both barrels of your blunderbuss right in the thick of them.'
'All right, come along,' urged Snap.
'No hurry, my boy; they have come a longish way, those wavies, and I guess they'll take a goodish time lunching on them mud-flats and beaver meadows,' replied his less excitable companion, whose eyes nevertheless gleamed with all the excitement of a genuine wild-fowler.
By-and-by, as the two hurried down the river-bed, they could hear a loud and excited gabbling, a thousand geese all talking at once.
'Talking like senators,' muttered old Dick; 'one would think they were paid for the job, but I expect as they've seen some country to talk about in the last day or two, between this and Hudson.'
'Last two or three days! why, how fast do they fly, Dick?' whispered Snap.
'Wal,' replied he, 'I guess I never travelled with them much, but I should say about sixty miles more or less an hour, and they'll keep it up too; but dry up now, for the cunning varmint put out regular scouts, and they'll hear us talking a quarter of a mile off.'