[Illustration: SHELTERS FOR DRIVING WILD-GEESE]
Well, the circle being complete, all four drivers (distant now, say, 1000 yards) converge on the common centre. The watchful geese have ceased grubbing up the spear-grass, and now stand alert with a forest of necks erect, while an increasing volume of gabbling attests their growing suspicion. Presently, with redoubled outcry, they rise on wing, and now commences the real science of our Spanish fowlers. The guns, after all, command but a small segment of the circle--anywhere else the geese can break out scathless--and this mischance it is the object of our drivers and flankers to avert. No sooner does the gaggling band shift its course to port or starboard than the "stop" on that side is seen to be urging his horse in full career to intercept their flight, yet using such judgment as will neither deflect their course too much or turn them back altogether. Sometimes both flankers and drivers are seen to be engaged at once, and a pretty sight it is to the prostrate gunners to watch the equestrian manoeuvres.
Presently the whole band head away for what appears the only available outlet, and should they then pass directly over one or other of the guns, are seldom so high but that a pair should be secured right-and-left.
In strong gales of wind the geese, on being driven, are apt, instead of taking a direct course, to circle around in revolving flight, gaining altitude at each revolution; and in such case not only come in very high but at incredible speed--_mas lejeros que zarcetas_--swifter than teal, as Vasquez puts it.
The first essential of success in driving wild-geese (and the same applies to great bustard and all large winged game) is to instal the firing-line as near as may be without disturbing the fowl. The more remote the guns the greater the difficulty in forcing the game through the crucial pass.
To manoeuvre single bands of geese as above, three or four guns at most, with the same number of drivers, are best. A great crowd of horsemen (such being never seen in these wilds) unduly arouses suspicions already acute enough. With any greater number of guns, it is advisable to extend the field of operations to, say, two or three miles, thereby enclosing several troops of geese--this requiring a large force of drivers. It does not, however, follow that each of these enclosed troops will "enter" to the guns; for should one pack come in advance, the firing will turn back the others. This mischance--or rather bungle--may be averted (or may not) by the leading driver firing a blank shot behind so soon as the first geese are seen to have taken wing. Needless to remark, once a shot has been fired ahead, it becomes tenfold harder to force the remaining geese to the guns.