“We can’t be sure of that,” I said. “You don’t know how big this lake is. It could stretch for ten miles to either side. And you know how hard it is to walk along the shore line, especially with the deep snow covering up any inlets that might be just barely frozen over. We’d break through for sure.”

So he gave up pestering me on that point and took to studying the shotgun again. He had found several of the .22 cartridges for his gun in his pocket, but, of course, they wouldn’t fit the 12-gauge shotgun.

“There ought to be some way to shoot these,” he said. “If we only had a smaller barrel to put inside the shotgun’s big one.”

“Maybe we could make one out of a hollow reed,” I suggested.

He got excited over that and rushed out to pick some reeds from the edge of the lake. But when he tried cutting one to size and fitting it down inside the shotgun it became obvious immediately that it wouldn’t work.

“We’ve got to make this gun shoot,” he declared. “If it would, I bet I could bag a goose.”

“Flying half a mile up?” I scoffed. “You’re a dreamer.”

“No,” he said. “They’re out on the lake right now.”

I went to the window. He was right. A large flock of geese was drifting just off the boat landing, dipping their heads in the water for food. Several had come up onto the thin ice and were foraging there.

“Do you think they would sit still long enough for us to get close enough to strike one with a stick?” I asked.

“No,” Tim replied. “I tried to creep up on them and they jumped back in the water.”

“They weren’t there yesterday.”

“I think they came in late last night,” he said.

“How long will they stay?”

“Not very long. They’re late now. I think they’re just tired. They’ll leave as soon as they get their second wind.”

I rummaged back through my memory. I remembered my father and Indian Pete telling stories around the fireplace about how they had hunted as boys. One tale had included the trick of catching wild turkeys with the small fence. But I was willing to bet that a goose had more sense than any turkey.

“We’ll trap them,” I said suddenly.

“With what?” Tim said. We both looked toward the box under the trapper’s bed. What fools we had been! Setting snares and deadfalls when we had a half dozen of the finest steel traps you could want.

“Do you think we could get them to stick their heads in one of those traps?” I said.

“No,” Tim said. “But I know where to set them, and maybe we can get us a beaver. Or a coon.”

He stared at me and I stared back. We began to laugh.

“We really are some woodsmen!” I said. “Why did we let those traps rust under the bed?”