PEPACTON 



is the best time to listen, to put your ear to Nature's 

 keyhole and see what the whisperings and the pre- 

 parations mean. 



"Dark night, that from the eye his function takes, 

 The ear more quick of apprehension makes," 



says Shakespeare. I overheard some muskrats 

 engaged in a very gentle and affectionate jabber 

 beneath a rude pier of brush and earth upon which 

 I was standing. The old, old story was evidently 

 being rehearsed under there, but the occasional 

 splashing of the ice-cold water made it seem like 

 very chilling business ; still we all know it is not. 

 Our decoys had not been brought in, and I dis- 

 tinctly heard some ducks splash in among them. 

 The sound of oar-locks in the distance next caught 

 my ears. They were so far away that it took some 

 time to decide whether or not they were approach- 

 ing. But they finally grew more distinct, the 

 steady, measured beat of an oar in a wooden lock, 

 a very pleasing sound coming over still, moonlit 

 waters. It was an hour before the boat emerged 

 into view and passed my post. A white, misty 

 obscurity began to gather over the waters, and in 

 the morning this had grown to be a dense fog. By 

 early dawn one of my friends was again in the box, 

 and presently his gun went bang ! bang! then bang! 

 came again from the second gun he had taken with 

 him, and we imagined the water strewn with ducks. 

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