BUFFALO AND DUCK SHOOTING 299 



you will reach the coast or some river that will 

 lead you there. A few miles' walk in the line of 

 the furrows will lead you out of even an Iowa 

 cornfield. My one resource seemed to he to wait 

 for the hue and cry and submit to the humiliation 

 of being located through shoutings and shoot- 

 ings. As I was about to give up the struggle to 

 find the skiff I came upon a muskrat mound 

 some four or five feet in height. From the top 

 of the mound I saw the handkerchief that floated 

 above the skiff. I took its bearings with exact- 

 ness and, with eyes that were glued to the com- 

 pass I carried, veered neither to right nor to left 

 until I ran into the skiff. 



When the Petermans found me one of them 

 asked if I had not been away from the skiff, that 

 he thought he heard me shooting at some distance 

 from it. 



"Yes," I replied, "I got tired of sitting still 

 and I waded around a bit. I picked up quite a 

 lot of birds that way." 



"I meant to have told vou," said he, : 'that it 

 wouldn't be safe for vou to leave the boat. 



