“It’s an old weapon of wild people,” said Rob. “I’ve read about that sort of thing. They use it in South America for catching animals, and there they call it the bolas, or balls. I think they use stones down there, and of course they are a great deal heavier than these little ivory weights.”
He motioned to Skookie to show how he proposed to use this curious device. The Aleut, understanding perfectly what was required, again caught the thongs by their central ring and deftly began to whirl them about his head. Aiming at a post which stood up in the grass near the barabbara, he finally cast loose his whirling thongs, which promptly wrapped tightly around the post as they flew. The young brown hunter grinned at this, and all the boys were surprised at the force with which the thongs clung about the object of the aim.
“Jinks!” said John. “I shouldn’t wonder if they’d kill a bird, if they hit it, or anyhow tie it up. The question is, how can you get close enough to the geese to catch them with this sort of arrangement. A goose is about the wildest thing in the world. I don’t suppose Skookie could hit anything very far.”
“I don’t know,” mused Rob. “But why not let him try? If the birds are done nesting, and the young ones are flying, they would make a mighty good addition to our table if we could get some of them.”
Another flock of geese passed by. Rob pointed from the thong-cords toward the geese.
“S’pose you catch-um?” he asked of Skookie.
The boy smiled, and without a word picked up his thongs and led the way along the shore of the lagoon. The others followed, seeing that he proposed to capture some wild-fowl in the native way, as he had once before intimated might be done.
He was no bad hunter, this young savage. After locating a big flock of geese which were sunning themselves on the mud flats close to the grass, he led his companions far back from the water, making a wide détour. At length he began to approach the fowl from a point where they would be concealed by the heavy grass. It seemed an age to the white boys, but Skookie was in no hurry. Like a cat he crawled and crawled, a few inches at a time, until finally he reached a point where they could hear the contented croaking and jabbering of the geese as they rested, entirely unsuspicious of any danger. It must be remembered that in this part of the world the wild-fowl are seldom if ever disturbed, and hence are far less suspicious than when they are near to civilization. If these honkers suspected anything at all now, they did no more than occasionally lift their heads and crane their long necks around. They could see nothing, because their pursuers were all crouched low beneath the tops of the grasses.