128 ‘COME DUCK SHOOTING WITH ME” 
two feet over him, I fired the second barrel and down he 
tumbled. 
These shots seemed invitation cards as almost im- 
mediately three teal came over my head from behind. A 
hurried aim and one fell but it should have been a 
double. Two teal came in from the water side. I 
waited for them to breast the decoys. One fell and 
the other hurried on over the marsh and away as the 
shot whistled behind him. 
Whish! High overhead coming from the marsh was 
a fine fat mallard. He saw me and didn’t even stop to 
look at the decoys. It wasa quick going-away shot, but 
he dropped at the crack of the gun and struck the shal- 
low water with a muddy splash. I thought I’d smoke 
a cigar to celebrate the mallard. Two matches were 
blown out. I only had four. Getting down in the 
bottom of the blind out of the wind I lighted my cigar 
and sat there contentedly smoking for a few minutes 
before resuming my seat. When I looked out again 
something was stirring among the decoys. I dodged 
down out of sight and grabbed the gun. It was a very 
suspicious spoonbill that had flown in and alighted so 
quietly that I hadn’t heard it. He sat upright, alert 
and motionless, with his head turned so he could see my 
two-story structure with one eye. Finally he made up 
his mind he didn’t like the looks of things and sprang 
with a great bound into the air. I watched the manner 
of his start. He first crouched and then sprang upward 
with the full force of his legs and a half a dozen very 
quick, strong beats of his wings. I let him get eight 
rods away before I fired. 
Then came a waiting spell. I picked up some small 
stakes that had done duty before in the same line and 
stuck up my five ducks alongside my first one and had a 
