IN THE WILD RICE FIELDS. 36 1 



it with trembling hands, fever heat and headache from 

 its recoil under the heavy charges I was vainly pouring 

 into it, with the last duck that had fallen swimming 

 away only wounded, half afraid to reshoot it because 

 my ammunition was getting exhausted, yet knowing 

 that it would surely get away if I did not reshoot it; 

 painfully conscious, too, that my chances of hitting a 

 well duck were fragile compared with the certainty of a 

 shot at the cripple ; there I stood, delighted yet bewil- 

 dered, ecstatic yet miserable. 



Never did Nature make a fitter background for such 

 a display as appeared when twilight sank over the 

 earth. The sky was one of those rare autumnal skies, 

 on which light is shattered into a hundred tints, when, 

 above the horizon, all is clear-cut in sharp outline, and 

 over all below it lies a pallid glow that intensifies all 

 brilliant colors, but throws a weird, sepulchral gloom 

 upon all sombre shades. From the departed sun a 

 broad, rosy light radiated far away into the zenith, 

 while the clear sky on the east was changed by the con- 

 trast into pale gold tinged with faded green. North 

 and south, the deep blue changed into delicate olive 

 tints, shading into orange toward the centre of the 

 great dome. On the west were cloud-banks of rich 

 umber, fringed with crimson fire; on the east, long 

 banks of coppery gold, and aloft long, fleecy streams 

 of pale, lemon-colored vapor. Over such a stage now 

 suddenly poured a troop of actors, that made the won- 

 ders of half an hour — aye, ten, five minutes ago — seem 

 a mere puppet show. 



