136 WILD FOWL SHOOTING. 
Thought the others would come in? Perhaps they 
would and perhaps they weuldn’t. I have waited a 
good many times myself, refraining to shoot, expecting 
a better shot, and getting none at all, and experience 
has taught me that in the long run the best way is to 
kill a duck when it gets within thirty to thirty-five 
yards, no matter what you may see in expectation. 
Of course it would have been very nice to have waited 
and killed three out of the four; but suppose they hadn’t 
come? Would have felt pretty cheap, wouldn’t we ? 
But here it is noon; we will go over on that ridge, 
make some coffee, and have lunch.” We go, leaving 
our decoys in the water. 
Soon coffee is made, and sitting on our rubber coats 
we are enjoying ourselves, as only hungry hunters can. 
As you face the nortn, I notice’ you gaze idly on 
those hills so near us, then turn your eyes indifferently 
away. Nothing particularily interesting about them, 
is there? Simply bluffs, grass and scraggy trees,—an 
elevated point overlooking the surrounding country. 
You see this, and your curiosity is satisfied, your in- 
terest dies out. Let me tell you a little about those 
hills, where the cattle are so peaceably grazing to-day. 
Some years ago, they were the rendezvous of the most 
desperate gang of horse-thieves and murderers that 
ever infested the West. 1 was from this vicinity they 
sallied forth, bent on rapine and murder. It is only 
thirty miles below here where they murdered old man 
Davenport in his own house. On these hill-tops, as late 
as 1832, the Sac and I’ox Indians held their councils of 
war; here, where from their elevated positions, they 
could command a view up and down the broad Miss- 
issippi River. It was on those bluffs that Black Hawk, 
