Lost on the Prairie. 



The life of the sportsman is a medley, made up of good 

 days, and bad days, and we are apt to remember best those that 

 gave us the largest bag of game, the best basket of fish, or. the 

 most pleasure. But here and there, scattered along life's jour- 

 ney, we find a day that may be well remembered, that we enjoy 

 much more in retrospect than we did the actual experience. 

 I can assure you, dear reader, that such is the case with the 

 incident I am giving you here. 



In the fall of '72 I was camped on the west end of Clear 

 Lake, Iowa, with three companions, shooting, fishing and en- 

 joying life as only four jolly sportsmen can ; living under a can- 

 vas roof, with game and fish in plenty, and the restraints and 

 cares of business left 200 miles behind. We arrived in Sep- 

 tember, got our camp in shape, and all through this month and 

 well up into October had the finest kind of shooting of chickens, 

 within a mile or so of camp ; but, as the weather grew colder, 

 the chickens bunched up and became more wary. About this 

 time ducks, geese and cranes began coming down from the 

 north, and we divided our time between the chickens and wa- 

 ter fowl shooting the former early and late, and the chickens 

 in the warm part of the day. Eventually game grew scarce 

 around the lake, and we had to make long pilgrimages, north, 

 south, and west, to get a good bag. As I was returning one 

 evening from a hunt, I noticed several flocks of ducks, circling 

 around over a field, and on going to the place discovered it to 

 be a piece of late buckwheat that had just been harvested. The 

 ducks were having a regular picnic in it, and apparently had 

 not been molested, as hundreds of them arose and left for the 

 lake on my approach. I did not fire a shot, but went to work 

 and built a couple of good blinds, and made an appointment to 

 occupy it Monday morning. I kept my little secret, intending 

 to surprise the boys Monday with a bag of game that would 

 make their eyes stick out. I would shoot ducks in the morning, 



[107] 



