22 DUCKING DAYS 



was a new form of shooting to me. I never saw the 

 ducks until they swung into the opening and pitched 

 for the decoys. Mallards predominated, so much so that 

 we only fired at the countless scaups to keep them away 

 from our decoys. 



Whether it was the little hen or not, or the abundance 

 of smartweed that tempted I cannot tell. But I never 

 saw ducks pour into a pond as these did. At first it was 

 in small flocks, then they appeared to be driven by some 

 unseen force into our waterhole. We could not keep 

 them out. In a half an hour what began as sport now 

 threatened to turn into slaughter, if we persisted. We 

 could never use half the ducks we killed, and even in that 

 niarket-hunter-infested region my companion singTdarly 

 was no market hunter; just a lover of the wild whose 

 livelihood was gained from trapping and guiding outers 

 in the swamps. 



"For God's sake stop!" Pete commanded. "We got 

 enuff. I 'low we won't know what to do with what we 

 have, 'nd if we keep this up there won't be no room in 

 the boat fur them decoys." 



Then I got a history of that little decoy hen, as Pete 

 described her: "She hain't got the looks much of a 

 wild mallard, but she can out-mallard any decoy that 

 ever lived!" Pete's statement was irrefutably beyond 

 contradiction. She was the single living product from 

 the mating of a tame mallard drake and a crippled hen 



