14 Sporting Sketches 



with the help of your superb gift I'll get him ! 



Really, I must get him ! " 



****** 



Two months later the decoys were made and 

 painted. He knew how to paint, and he knew the 

 birds better than most men know them. The pro- 

 files were life-size, of half-inch stuff, and dressed 

 down to a knifelike thinness along all upper edges. 

 Seen from directly above, they were mere sticks 

 upon the ground, but from a distance they were 

 geese, and when set up with one pointing to each 

 quarter, two always were visible. 



When the birds came back, he was ready, and 

 one night he said, " By-by, little one, I'm off after 

 Wa-Wa." Fully equipped, with the profiles knap- 

 sack-fashion, he started on the long tramp. It was 

 the softest of spring nights. The air was shaken 

 with the peep of hylas and the brazen ripple of 

 frogs. The storm of it before him calmed at his 

 passing and burst anew in his rear. For mile after 

 mile he tramped, till the east flared redly and the 

 breath of the huge open came to him. A pair of 

 blue wings hissed past, and from the darkness came 

 the hoarse queries of black duck, the clearer tone 

 of mallard, and the querulous chatter of pintail. 

 Once, from far away, came a faint honking, and at 

 the sound of it he hastened. 



To arrange the decoys was a simple task, but as 

 he thrust the last support into the soft wheat-land, 

 his ear caught a mournful " Hunk ! hunk hunk ! " 



" I'll go a hundred yards below to make sure," he 

 muttered, as he turned to look at the really excellent 

 decoys. Where receding waters had left a stranded 



