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320 DUCK SHOOTING. 



cripples as we could, we had somewhere between thirty 

 and forty ducks, I believe, nearly a dozen and a half of 

 which were fine fat canvas-backs and redheads. This 

 we voted plenty good enough for us. 



Not so Gokey. Both he and Bowers declared we had 

 seen no shooting at all. They held conference, and soon 

 announced that on the following day we must be pre- 

 pared for a long ride. We were to go to the famous 

 Chase Pass, about twenty-four miles northeast of Daw- 

 son, and to see what both these gentlemen declared to be 

 the best flight of ducks in the whole country. 



Here again I am obliged to say that the representa- 

 tions held out did not begin to equal the reality. The 

 Chief and myself have traveled a little in this big coun- 

 try of America, and have seen ducks all the way from 

 British America to Mexico, yet never, even on the Gulf 

 coast of Texas, did we ever see so many ducks, such 

 comfortable, obliging ducks, and ducks so accessible 

 and incessant. It was a wonderful sight of wildfowl — 

 one of those sights which make the unthinking say that 

 there are "just as many ducks now as there ever were." 

 Gokey said this was always a great place for ducks, but 

 that this year the birds were more numerous than for 

 many years previous, thanks to high water and to the 

 license law, which cut off the non-resident market 

 shooting and reduced that of game hogs who knew no 

 moderation. Gokey said that up to the past two years 

 it was a daily sight at Dawson station to see the entire 

 platform lined with ducks waiting for the train to bear 

 them out of the State. He said that in warm weather 



