256 DUCK SHOOTING. 



even fifteen feet in some particular places. A beautiful 

 valley, smooth and level as a floor, stretches away for 

 miles from both sides in some places, and in others only 

 on one side, when the high bluffs come up to the bank. 

 Beyond this level valley are the high lands, irregular 

 lines of sand bluffs, and on the high table-land beyond 

 is the feeding ground of the great army of geese and 

 ducks that frequent the Platte every spring and some- 

 times in the fall. Geese and ducks are not as plentiful 

 here now as years ago; while there are a good many 

 birds here every favorable spring, there is not one to 

 the fifty there used to be in years gone by. Ten and 

 fifteen years ago fifteen to twenty geese were a common 

 thing for one man to kill in one day, or even in a half 

 day's hunt. A friend claimed to have killed fifty-two 

 geese one afternoon from 2 o'clock to sundown, and no 

 one who knows the man or the numbers of birds doubts 

 the claim. But these are past supplies, never to be seen 

 on the Platte again. At the present time on stormy 

 days, if a hunter is in a good place, he may be able to 

 bag in the course of a day ten, or maybe fifteen or 

 twenty, geese, and as many ducks. But these days and 

 chances are, indeed, very rare. Very much oftener the 

 hunter comes in with one goose and a few ducks, or if it 

 be a bad day he comes in empty-handed. 



I live within one day's drive of the river, and in the 

 spring a party of four or five go to the old Platte for a 

 two or three weeks' hunt and a general good time. 

 Landing at the river about 4 o'clock in the evening, 

 after a good drive of thirty-five miles, we are made wel- 



