32 “COME DUCK SHOOTING WITH ME” 
I should have kept my mouth shut,” said Jimmy to 
me, “‘but I just had to break in.”’ 
‘“““Do you mean to tell me,’ says I, ‘that you lived 
next door to that fellow for a year and never knew his 
name and your house and his house joined each other?’ 
‘“““That’s what I said,’ says Blue Eyes. ‘What is 
there strange about it?’ 
“““Tt’s too all-fired strange to sound just right to me,’ 
I told him. ‘Why where I live I know every man for 
forty miles around and each man has four dogs and I 
know the name of every dog.’ 
‘Blue Eyes shut up as tight asa clam after that. He 
wouldn’t say another word. I always regretted speak- 
ing up as I did. We shot a week together but Blue 
Eyes would never tell me the end of that yarn or what 
it was about.”’ 
As Jimmy’s story ended we reached the sink box. It 
was full of water. The ranchers on the upper branches 
of the Bear River had stopped irrigating and the river 
had rapidly risen the past day or two, the lake of course 
following suit. The water was half an inch above the 
top of the sink box. 
““We cannot shoot here to-day,’’ said Jimmy, stand- 
ing up in the boat and looking round. ‘‘ We must go 
somewhere else; let’s row down to Single Point and 
try it there.” 
‘““Where and why is it called Single Point?” I asked. 
“‘Tt’s that long narrow point half a mile south that 
runs out into the lake,”’ said Jimmy pointing towards it. 
“They call it Single Point because the shooting is gener- 
ally on single birds, mostly pintail, spoonbill, and teal.”’ 
“That sounds good to me,”’ I answered. ‘‘The mud 
should be soft with this high water and the ducks can 
come close in to the shore to feed.”’ 
