THE MUD QUEEN 107 
brought my sidewheeler to a standstill in front of the 
sink box. It was full of water. 
‘We will have to bail a lot if we shoot here to-day,” 
said Jimmy. 
“‘Possibly,’’ I said, ‘‘but Jack told me all three of the 
sink boxes down this way were new ones that have had 
plenty of time to swell tight. Once the water is bailed 
out we will probably have little trouble. ”’ 
“‘T’ll bail it out,” replied Jimmy, “‘and then we’ll see.”’ 
The sink box was three feet wide, four feet long, and 
three feet six inches deep, sunk in the mud with the tops 
projecting two inches above the water. When a little 
mud is thrown around this projection, the top appears 
to be on the level of the water. Sitting down on a camp 
stool or shell box in the sink box, the shooter is hidden 
from the ducks, unless they fly directly over him. 
Once bailed out the sink box proved fairly dry. It 
made about eighteen inches of water every hour and 
we had to do a little bailing that often. Standing up 
in the boat I looked west. Half a mile away was a tre- 
mendous raft of ducks. The water was black with 
them. Jimmy saw them too. 
‘““There they are,’’ whispered Jimmy after the first 
look. ‘‘They’re migratory birds, we must put out a 
lot of decoys to-day.”’ 
““Why so?’’ I asked. 
‘“Why,’’ said Jimmy, ‘‘don’t you see that big black 
raft of ducks? Migratory birds see these big bunches 
of their own kind and decoy naturally to them. They 
would not look at our twenty wooden decoys, but they 
will come to a big bunch ali right.”’ 
‘“‘How many mud decoys do you think we should 
have?’’ I asked. 
‘‘Oh, about a hundred,” answered Jimmy. “I'll 
