MORNING MALLARD SHOOTING FALL. 148 



noise going through the rice you need not ex- 

 pect to shoot much until we get on a stand : the 

 ducks hear us too plainly. 



Look ! -what a lot are getting out ahead of us. 

 That is where I want to stop. There is an open 

 place there in the rice for a few rods, and the 

 rice is rather lower and more thinly scattered 

 about it ; there is a nice thick bunch in the 

 middle, too, if no one has broken it down, where 

 we can hide completely. Now you can see it 

 straight ahead. We will run the boat right into 

 the middle ot it ; there, I guess that will do well 

 enough. Take the paddle, and bend the tops of 

 the rice down over the bow, so as to hide the 

 boat a little better, and it won't be in the way 

 of the gun when you are shooting. 



Ha ! ha ! don't be in a hurry to stoop ; those 

 ducks are a quarter of a mile off*, and no 

 more apt to come here than to go somewhere 

 else. You never need stoop until they get nearer 

 than that. How angry it has made me to have 

 a nervous know-nothing catch me by the arm and 

 yank me down, for fear a duck that he happened 

 to catch sight ot half a mile off" would see me 

 and take alarm ; a duck too, perhaps, that 1 nad 

 been watching myself for two or three minutes. 



