"Here is my answer: Leave! Departez!"

"What if I can get a goose to hold still for you without killing it?" asked Arthur Stuart.

Audubon was on the verge of a sharp answer when it finally dawned on him what he had just seen Arthur do, summoning the geese. "You are, how do you say, a knack person, a caller of gooses."

"Geese," Alvin offered helpfully.

Arthur shook his head. "I just like birds."

"I like birds too," said Audubon, "but they don't feel the same about me."

"Cause you kill 'em and you ain't even hungry," said Arthur Stuart.

Audubon looked at him in utter consternation. At last he made his decision. "You can make a goose hold still for me?"

"I can ask him to. But you got to put the gun away." Audubon immediately leaned it against a tree.

"Unload it," said Arthur Stuart.

"You think I break my promise?"

"You didn't make no promise," said Arthur Stuart.

"All right!" cried Audubon. "I promise upon the grave of my grandmother." He started unloading the gun.

"You promise what?" demanded Arthur.

Alvin almost laughed aloud, except that Arthur Stuart was so grim about it, making sure there were no loopholes through which Audubon could slip once Arthur brought the geese back.

"I promise, I shoot no gooses! Pas de shooting of gooses!"

"Not even powder shooting, whatever that is. No shooting any birds all day," Arthur said.

"Not 'powder,' you ignorant boy. J'ai dit 'pas de.' Rien! No shooting of gooses, that's what I say!" In a mutter, he added, "Tous les sauvages du monde sont ici aujourd'hui."

Alvin chuckled. "No shooting savages, either, if you don't mind."

Audubon looked at him, furious and embarrassed. "Parlez-vous fran‡ais?"

"Je ne parle pas fran‡ais," said Alvin, remembering a phrase from the few halting French lessons Margaret tried before she finally gave up on getting Alvin to speak any language other than English. Latin and Greek had already been abandoned by then. But he did understand the word sauvage, having heard it so often in the French fort of Detroit when he went there as a boy with Ta-Kumsaw.