Long before daybreak next morning, Barker awakened the soundly sleeping boy.
“Get up, Bill!” he called. “We’ll have a cup of coffee and then we’ll try our luck at the geese.”
Very quietly, without waking Tim, the two hunters slipped out of camp and got into their boat.
Soon they glided silently down stream. A mist was hanging over the river and large drops of moisture were falling off the trees along shore. Bill was shivering with cold and excitement.
“My, but it is dark and the water looks awfully cold and gloomy,” whispered Bill. “I would be afraid to go down the river alone. Listen!” he said under his breath, “I think I heard a wolf howl.”
“No,” the trapper quieted him, “the big wolves have left this country. Listen again.”
The sounds were nearer now. “Oh, it is a big hoot-owl. Several of them. They are answering each other.
“They make a noise like ghosts,” he continued, as a deep guttural, “Whoo-who-whooo,” came from a maple thicket close by. “My hair is trying to stand up under my cap, though I know they never attack anything but rabbits and woodchucks.”
The two hunters were now paddling along a side-channel which entered the main river near the point where they expected to find the geese.
“Be very quiet,” Barker cautioned the boy. “Geese not only have sharp eyes, but their hearing is very acute. If they hear any suspicious sounds there will be a grand flapping of wings and the whole flock will be off to some other place.”