66 WILD FOWL SHOOTING. 
Do so, and listen. A flame shoots from the muzzle. 
The noise startles you. Well it may, for it is like a 
eannon between these bluffs. Loud thunder seems tame 
compared with that report. And now, mark how it 
bowls along the side of yon bluff, appearing to gather 
renewed force as it travels; echoing and re-echoing un- 
til you feel that your gun has set the whole world in 
commotion ; that a fierce storm is raging on the bluff 
sides and in the ravines. You listen for the sighing of 
the wind, the gentle patter of the rain falling on the 
water, but the bright stars shining down on us dispel 
the illusion. Wonderful, isn’t it? Yes, itis. I have heard 
this same effect scores and scores of times, and I never 
pass these bluffs at night without setting them off, loving 
to hear their angry, growling mutterings. On your right 
the city of Lyons is drowsily nestling amid her hills and 
valleys, brilliant in her electric light, the tall chimneys 
of the mills reaching toward the skies. Those deep red 
lights are on her piers and rafts, warnings of danger to 
the mariner. The green and red hang from the extreme 
heights of a steamer, snugly lying at her dock. The 
blinking lights just opposite are at Fulton, a pictur- 
esque little town at the foot of rolling hills, where, in 
day, or moonlight nights, milk white monuments show 
up clearly in her cemetery on the hillside, thoughtful 
remembrances of the departed dead. 
One more mile and weare home. Our game I count- 
ed, just after you killed the goose,—65 mallards, 5 red- 
heads, 6 blue-bills, one canvas-back, and one goose,—a 
splendid lot, but not unusual. 
We are now in one of the widest places in the upper 
Mississippi River. A perfect sea of water encompasses 
us on every side, and yet it is not deep here. Push 
