294 Life and Sport on the Pacific Slope 



splash I The canvasback and mallards fly higher 

 and faster in more solid phalanx. The wings of 

 the widgeon seem to whistle : a sound not to be 

 mistaken, but the heavier ducks come with a whir 

 and a rattle. Soon the morning shoot is over and 

 you return to camp and breakfast with many birds 

 at your belt. Oh, those cheery breakfasts! And 

 the good tobacco afterwards, and the talk and the 

 chaff! Then the guns are wiped out, the cartridge 

 belts refilled, and you draw lots to determine upon 

 whom the task devolves of flushing the ducks for 

 others to shoot at. Not till evening will the birds 

 fly of their own accord. 



Fortune ordains that the shortest straw is drawn 

 by you, so you walk briskly off to the lower end 

 of the marsh, while the others post themselves at 

 different points. You will have plenty of fun and 

 plenty of hard work before you see camp again. 

 Just round that corner is a small pool screened by 

 low rushes, a favourite feeding-place of the mal- 

 lards. Listen, and you will hear them. As you 

 crouch down, your spaniel crouches too, and to- 

 gether you steal through the rustling grasses. Con- 

 found it! They are not to be caught. With a 

 mighty whir-r-r, and Homeric quackings the splen- 

 did birds take wing. You watch them fly up the 

 marsh — too high up, you think, for the ambushed 

 guns. Not so. Even as you strain your eyes into 

 the blue, two of the birds fall, and the double report 



of the gun floats to your ears. Good old A ! 



His sixteen-bore (which the market- hunters regard 

 as a pretty toy in comparison with their huge ten- 

 bores) has vindicated the famous name upon its 



