Most of the ducks and geese that visited us were very like the European, though rather larger; both are very fat and well tasted, which is probably caused by the splendid acorns they find among us. We generally carried a whole load home, from which we merely cut the breasts, legs, and livers, and boiled them into a jelly. One afternoon, when Tiger had ridden off at an early hour in pursuit of game, I took my gun to go after geese down the river, which I heard croaking from the fort: I went out without calling a dog, and ran down to the water; I passed the garden and the ford, where the river winds to the north in the wood, and went into the bushes in order to approach the geese, which I had seen about a hundred yards farther on. All at once I heard something like the footfall of a horse echo through the forest on the opposite side. I listened, and convinced myself that I was not mistaken. Tiger had gone southward in the morning to Mustang Creek, and I could not imagine how he was now returning from the north. I lay down among the bushes, so as to keep an eye on the ford: the noise drew nearer, till a mounted Indian appeared on a path on the opposite side, who stopped there and looked cautiously around. After a while the Redskin crossed the ford, ascended the opposite bank, and taking his long rifle in his right hand, he led his horse into a thick bush about forty paces ahead of me. There he fastened it up, laid his rifle across his left arm, and shook fresh powder into the pan from his horn. What could the Indian intend, and to what tribe did he belong? These questions occurred to me simultaneously with the suspicion that he might probably have hostile designs. My gun was loaded with not very heavy shot, but it carried as far as the Indian's rifle, though it did not kill so certainly. I had, however, some slugs in my hunting pouch, and while he was repriming, I, as I lay flat on the ground, pulled out two of the largest bullets that fitted my gun. I thrust them both into the barrels, and then slowly drew the ramrod, pressed two paper wads on the bullets, and returned the ramrod to its place.