Goose Chase Read Online Free PDF Page B

the leaders of the flock) thinking that I had not the intestinal fortitude for this sort of travel.
    Little Echo's wound was not so dreadful as I had at first feared. My hand had robbed the arrow of the force to penetrate very far into the muscle, and it had missed the bone altogether.
    She lay still on my lap while I tended her. Often and often I had doctored the Geese in the past, and this one in particular was quite accustomed to my ministrations. Little Echo, for all her small size, was both a pest and a tease, fond of sneaking up on the others and stealing a choice tidbit from under their bills, or nipping them on the knees, or
ducking them in the pond. She was well and truly bitten for her pains and several times had needed bandaging after some mischievous act.

    So accustomed was I to scolding her as I bound her up that now I found myself abusing her heedlessness from habit. Then I recollected that she was injured, not through some bit of nonsense in the duck pond or our own home meadow, but in the act of rescuing me from the lewd embraces of a kingly cutthroat or, in the Prince's case, an imperial ass. I bit my lip and abruptly fell silent.
    Once Little Echo was cleaned and bandaged I released her, the while keeping a wary eye on her. She was ever a wild little thing and, even though she had acted the part of a heroine today, I did not trust her.
    Now at last I was able to sit and look about me and take pleasure in the ride. What I saw, however, was little more than a great many pumping white wings. The featherbed sagged under my weight and Little Echo's and, when I was sitting erect, the wings of the Geese were at my eye level. Yet there was an intense blue dome of sky above, and after a time a crescent moon rose over the edge of the featherbed.
    The sky slowly darkened and the stars began to show, pale and lonely. I soon understood why my Geese had procured for me not only the featherbed which was my chariot, but two others. Twas cold here in the sky when once the sun was gone.
    Suddenly I thought to wonder where we were going.
    "Where," I inquired, "are we going?"
    None of the Geese responded. Even could they have spoken with a human voice, their bills were fully occupied with the featherbed.

    "Do you not grow tired?" I asked. "Would you not like to rest for a time?"
    In truth, I myself was becoming a bit bored. And hungry. Nor was I accustomed to sitting in one position for such a time. How I longed to stand up and stretch my limbs!
    "We shall have to stop somewhere for the night," I argued, as the birds flew steadily on. I knew that although wild geese sometimes fly at night during long migrations, my own domestic birds never did. And never had they flown such a distance before, let alone with the burden of Little Echo and myself.
    "I pray you," I added, as my left leg suddenly cramped.
    However, my request was ignored. We sailed silently on through the velvet-black sky. I pulled the featherbeds closer about myself, shivering, and rubbed my calf ruefully. I would not ask again.
    It came into my mind that we had lost height, and I did not think that it was because we were landing, but rather because they had not the strength to keep us up so high so long. There was desperation now in their weary wing beats.
    Whither did we wander in the night sky, and why?
    I struggled to keep my eyes open. The labor of this flight was none of mine, yet I would not be carried like a helpless child, nor yet like some bundle of goods going to market. Though I could do naught to aid us in our journey, I sat up
very straight and pinched my arm until the diamonds trickled down my cheeks. Little Echo, less proud, slept at my knee.

    The land below us was dark and without feature now, but the scent of earth and leaf informed me that we traveled ever closer to the treetops. Would these demented fowls persevere, steadily sinking into calamity? Would the dawn's first light discover our mangled bodies, all to-brosten in a poor, pitiable