BUFFALO AND DUCK SHOOTING 297 



Henry on the Illinois River, where Phil Sheri- 

 dan was shooting. I wanted especially to see the 

 General and then, too, I wanted the ducks. My 

 trunk was hustled out of the baggage car while 

 the train waited and I hastened by wagon to 

 Henry only to just miss Sheridan. But the 

 ducks were there and I hunted up a hunter, one 

 Peterman by name, and we loaded up 150 car- 

 tridges that night which to the very last one I 

 used up the next day. 



We started at four o'clock in the morning and 

 I was stationed in a skiff in a great jungle of tall 

 reeds. I was in a big, submerged island- 

 meadow, bounded on the east by the Illinois 

 River and on the west by a slough that separated 

 us from land. Peterman and his brother in an- 

 other skiff rowed and sculled among the reeds, 

 stirring up the birds. I shot and I shot and I 

 shot, making little forays from time to time to 

 pick up the dead and capture the wounded game. 



Then it chanced that the ducks ceased to come 

 and I waded out in the knee-deep water to find 

 others. I had tied my handkerchief to the end 



