35^ DUCK SHOOTING. 



was firmly braced by the arrival of fifteen or twenty 

 mallards in a well-massed flock. They came past me 

 like a charge of cavalry, sweeping in bright uniform 

 low along the water, with shining necks and heads pro- 

 jecting like couched lances. I could see four or five 

 heads almost in line as I pulled the first trigger, yet 

 only one dropped, and that one with only a broken 

 wing. As they rose with obstreperous beat of wing, I 

 rained the second barrel into the thickest part of the 

 climbing mass, and another one fell with a broken 

 wing, while another wabbled and wavered for a hun- 

 dred yards or more, then rose high and hung in air for 

 a second, then, folding his wings, descended into a 

 heavy mass of reeds away on the other side of the main 

 slough. Meanwhile, my two wounded ducks, both flat- 

 tened out on the water, were making rapid time for the 

 thick reeds across the little slough, and both disap- 

 peared in them just as I got one barrel of my gun 

 capped. 



So it went on for an hour or so. There was scarcely 

 a minute to wait for a shot, yet in that hour I bagged 

 only four or five ducks. 



While gazing a moment into the blank that de- 

 spondency often brings before me, two blue-winged 

 teal shot suddenly across the void. With the instinct- 

 ive quickness of one trained to brush shooting, I tossed 

 the gun forward of the leading teal about the same 

 space that I had been accustomed to fire ahead of quail 

 at that apparent distance. The rear duck, fully four 

 feet behind the other, skipped with a splash over the 



