60 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 



meal on the bank of the river. Traveling across 

 the plains in company with a wagon, especially if 

 making a long trip, as we were then doing, is both 

 tiresome and monotonous. The scenery through 

 the places where the wagon must go is everywhere 

 much the same, and the pace is very slow. At lunch- 

 time I was glad to get off the horse, which had been 

 plodding along at a walk for hours, and stretch 

 my muscles; and, noticing a bunch of teal fly past 

 and round a bend in the river, I seized the chance 

 for a little diversion, and taking my double-barrel, 

 followed them on foot. The banks were five or six 

 feet high edged with a thick growth of cottonwood 

 saplings; so the chance to creep up was very good. 

 On getting round the bend I poked my head through 

 the bushes, and saw that the little bunch I was after 

 had joined a great flock of teal, which was on a sand 

 bar in the middle of the stream. They were all 

 huddled together, some standing on the bar, and 

 others in the water right by it, and I aimed for the 

 thickest part of the flock. At the report they sprang 

 into the air, and I leaped to my feet to give them 

 the second barrel, when from under the bank right 

 beneath me two shoveler or spoon-bill ducks rose, 

 with great quacking and, as they were right in line, 

 I took them instead, knocking both over. When I 

 had fished out the two shovelers, I waded over to 

 the sand bar and picked up eleven teal, making 

 thirteen ducks with two barrels. 



On one occasion my brother and myself made a 

 short wagon trip in the level, fertile, farming coun- 



