‘WITH BOGARDUS AND KLEINMAN II 
‘‘There will be fine shooting here to-day,” said Klein- 
man. 
“Tt sounds like it,’ said I. It was still dark as a 
pocket and the wind was blowing hard but every now 
and then I could hear the whistle of wings going over. 
‘‘Here’s the stand,’ said Kleinman. ‘‘I killed ninety- 
six ducks in it one day last week.”’ 
The stand was just a jumbled up pile of reeds, that 
had originally been stuck up in a small circle. Klein- 
man picked them over and soon had enough set up to 
make a new stand. They mingled with the growing 
reeds and tall marsh grass so well as to be hardly 
noticeable from a little distance. 
There were two or three big flattened bundles of grass 
and reeds on the floor of the stand, enough to keep the 
legs of my canvas stool from sinking too deeply in the 
mud. Eighteen decoys were put out in the pond about 
twenty yards from the stand and then Kleinman said, 
“Well! You're all set. I’m going to shoot about half 
a mile farther up the river, but I’ll be down about noon 
and we'll lunch and have a smoke together,’’ and off 
he went. 
The weather made the ducks uneasy; they were con- 
stantly alighting in the marsh and then rising seemingly 
in search of company. Eternal vigilance means suc- 
cess in this kind of duck shooting. The birds were 
coming from all quarters. Not exactly decoying but 
coming within long gunshot of the decoys, apparently 
wondering why the decoys did not rise and fly about 
with them. I was watching three mallards coming 
straight in from the east when—Whish! Half a dozen 
teal, coming from behind, went over my head within 
twenty feet. It was really too impudent, I could not 
stand it. My gun was at my shoulder; at the shot the 
