CHAPTER IX. 
DUCK-SHOOTING ON THE INLAND LAKES. 
Our West—’way out West—a long distance from 
our eastern cities in miles, but now, thanks to steam 
and iron, a short one in hours, upon an island lying 
in a bay that debouches into one of the great chain 
of lakes, is situated a large, neat, white-painted and 
comfortable house, where a club of sportsmen meet 
to celebrate the advent and presence of the wild 
ducks. The mansion—for it deserves that name 
from its extent and many conveniences—peeps out 
from amid the elms and hickories that cover the 
point upon which it stands, almost concealed in 
summer by their foliage, but in winter protected, as 
it were, by their bare, gaunt limbs. From the 
piazza that extends along the front a plank pathway 
leads to the wharf, which shelves into the water, 
like the levees on the Mississippi, and down or up 
which each sportsman can, unaided, run his light 
boat at his own sweet will. Adjoining the wharf is 
the out-house, where the boats are stored in tiers, 
one above another, and are protected summer and 
winter from the weather. Not far off stands that 
most important building, a commodious ice-house, 
suggestive of the luxuries and comforts that a better 
acquaintance with the ways of the place will realize. 
