barrilL-house blind 

 had two rin^s made and bolted to the barrel for 

 stake rings and with two stakes four or five feet 

 long with hooks on driven in the ground and 

 then hooked into the rings on the barrel to hold 

 it down, just leaving the top of the barrel high 

 enough above the surface so that the water 

 could not splash over. In case the water was 

 shallow a hole was dug to lower the tub to the 

 water level. If the water was not too deep the 

 hunter would wade out to his blind, otherwise he 

 would be rowed out in a boat. In shooting from 

 a sink tub blind one has to shoot over decoys 

 and a hunter with a good call and a bunch of 

 decoys was pretty sure of a string of birds to 

 take to camp. By the time the ice was out of 

 the marsh 1 had everything ready for the start. 

 The ice usually goes out about the tenth to the 

 twentieth of /"Aarch. Sometimes it is earlier 

 than that and sometimes later. Pinally the day 

 for the start came. We made camp on a small 

 island in the marsh near a large island called 

 Round Grove and near a large, open body of 



154 



