pleted. On the way south, in the autumn they had lost nearly a score of their numbers by running into a hunting party, when the flock was flying low. The pot-hunters along the Carolina coast where they had wintered had taken twice as many more, so that it was barely a score of these splendid birds that had come back in April.
If the hunters only appreciated the fact that when they bag one wild goose in the spring, out of season, they rob the flock of a full brood, they would think before they shoot. But it is the way of the prodigal American to waste much more than he uses.
The Gray Squadron had spent a profitable summer and its number was now recruited to one hundred and four members, made up of ten new broods and about a dozen old birds.
Hitherto the flock had been led on the southward flight by an old gray veteran, but his last autumn experience had put him in bad with the ganders who led each of the individual flocks. These birds were a sort of cabinet or heads of departments for the leader. So it
