JOHN’S ISLAND 101 
I congratulated Jimmy on his art in setting out the teal 
decoys and it is an art to do this properly. We had no 
more trouble after that. The quick eyes of the flying 
teal would see their comrades quietly resting on the 
warm sand. All idea of passing up such a good thing 
and flying over high up into the bay beyond was for- 
gotten. They flew lower, and coming in against the 
wind, were flying slower when passing the blind, getting 
ready to alight among their old friends. 
Jimmy kept score with a bit of a pencil on a paste- 
board shell box. Inside of an hour when the flight 
stopped he announced we had twenty-seven teal, 
making our total score forty-eight. Twenty-five ducks 
to the man was the legal limit and I held to the limit. 
Twenty-five ducks a day is a good shoot and surely 
enough for anyone. 
“Look at that,’’ called Jimmy, pointing at a lone 
mallard drake that was flying directly over our first set 
of decoys. The only mallard we had seen that day— 
I longed to get him. Taking quick aim I fired. Noth- 
ing happened; then with more careful aim I fired again. 
The duck simply turned his head and seemed to look 
derisively back at us. 
‘Shoot! Jimmy! Shoot!’’ I called as a last resort. 
Jimmy was laughing, but his gun came up. I saw his 
arms momentarily tighten and his shoulder jerk back 
as the gun fired. It was a long shot but the mallard 
fell with a broken wing. 
Jimmy started out after him; the mallard was sixty 
yards away and could swim in the water as fast as 
Jimmy could plow through it. Again and again Jim- 
my’s gun cracked, but aswimming duck low in the water 
is a small mark at sixty yards. Jimmy had but one 
more shell left, when he suddenly splashed into a run, 
