76 The Life Worth Living 



nel and drag the hunting dink with guns and 

 decoys over the mud-bar to the marsh. 



I take an hour to locate the right spot. 

 I'm dead sure of the place they went the last 

 run of tides, but, if the conditions of weather 

 differ, they may change their notion with 

 the change of wind and stop a mile below or 

 go a mile farther on, and to miss their track 

 five hundred yards is to miss them five hun- 

 dred miles. They will not listen to a call in 

 their great flock flights on this run of tides. 



At length I select the place in which to cast 

 the fate of the day. I set the decoys in the 

 short grass of a bald high place on the marsh, 

 exactly where I believe they will assemble in 

 grand conclave to sit out the high water. A 

 hole is dug with a spade just deep enough to 

 lie flat on one's back and hide below the sur- 

 face of the ground, and tall green grass is cut 

 and stuck carefully around the hole until it 

 looks like a hundred other clumps of grass. 



The calico birds begin to come in long be- 



