THE MUD QUEEN 119 
that was the only thing in my favor, and then they 
crossed the so-called ‘‘pass,’’ the wide shallow creek, in 
the marsh. Their crossing place was forty yards from 
our blind, but a single teal, at forty yards, flying at full 
speed, is not a particularly easy object to hit even if 
they were all side shots. I happened to know because 
after shooting all my eleven shells I had only two teal 
down. 
I began shooting six feet ahead of them, then ten feet, 
then fifteen, and every shot was a perfect exhibition of 
how not to doit. Then in despair I pushed the gun 
twenty feet ahead and at the shot the teal collapsed. 
But then I only had one shell left. After faithfully 
missing nine straight, I killed two in succession. We 
had a very nice shoot after Jimmy brought up the 
ammunition reserves. There was no change in the 
direction of their flight, nor did any birds show up ex- 
cept teal and nearly all single teal at that. But how 
they did fly! It took exactly forty-five minutes to 
kill one man’s limit of twenty-five. 
‘“Sometimes,’’ said Jimmy when the teal stopped 
flying, ‘“‘there’s a flight of mallards in this pass towards 
evening. Let’s stick around and maybe we may get a 
few to-night and while we are waiting I’ll tell you how I 
put both feet into it, good and plenty, three years ago 
this fall.”’ 
““How did you manage to do that?’’ I asked. 
‘“‘It was before the season opened,” replied Jimmy. 
“Sam Black and I were down at the shack getting things 
ready, when one evening a tall thin chap came down in 
an auto with a great big trunk and told me he was a 
professor of biology. I supposed it had something to 
do with bibles. Of course I asked him in. After sup- 
per, during a little pause in the conversation, I thought 
