28 DUCKING DAYS 



If SO, they had forgotten it, and were friendly enough. 

 They merely swam aside while our boat plied the bay. 

 The boatman said he was not sure whether they had 

 come from North or South America, which I remember 

 had interested me. I had never thought of ducks com- 

 ing this way for the Winter or going that way for the 

 Summer. Perhaps none of us does. All the same, it is 

 likely. It may account for the scarcity of ducks up here 

 at times, a calculation not entering into those specula- 

 tions occasionally occupying some of the finest brains we 

 have in this country. 



It was thirty miles up the coast to Rockport, where 

 the Granada II was waiting to take up out to the shoot- 

 ing grounds. We were taken over there in an automo- 

 bile, and we had no more than cleared the outskirts of 

 Corpus Christi than we saw ducks in the backwater and 

 on the flats. They were for the most part ducks which 

 no one on the Texas Coast cares anytliing about — ^black- 

 jacks, spoonbills and bluebills. Your Texan, I very soon 

 found out, is not after trash of that sort, which he is 

 very glad to return to us for what we can make of it. 

 We passed on tlie way one of the great Taft ranches, 

 so denominated on the roof of a barn in letters as broad 

 as Brother Bill. It was a mighty flat place, and looked 

 as if the owner must be making a lot of money at some- 

 thing else. I recalled that goose shooting was said to 

 be one of the charms of that ranch, but it was good and 

 gooseless when I went by. 



