We saw the greatest number
of feathered game - enormous flocks of geese, brant, and ducks.
Our
camp one night was near a small lake just the other side of Benton,
and at dusk hundreds of geese came and lit on the water, until it
looked like one big mass of live, restless things, and the noise was
deafening. Some of the men shot at them with rifles, but the geese did
not seem to mind much.
Charlie told me at Maginnis that he did not want to return to Shaw,
and I wondered at that so many times. I went in the kitchen two
miserable mornings back and found him sitting down looking unhappy and
disconsolate. I do not remember to have ever seen a Chinaman sitting
down that way before, and was afraid he might be sick, but he said at
once and without preamble, "Me go 'way!" He saw my look of surprise
and said again, "Me go 'way - Missee Bulk's Chinee-man tellee me go
'way." I said, "But, Charlie, Lee has no right to tell you to go; I
want you to stay." He hesitated one second, then said in the most
mournful of voices, "Yes, me know, me feel vellee blad, but Lee, he
tellee me go - he no likee mason-man." No amount of persuasion could
induce him to stay, and that evening after dinner he packed his
bedding on his back and went away - to the Crossing, I presume.
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