A MORNING WITH NATURE, ETC. 253 



last half hour you have been fooling with the hammers, 

 raising and lowering them. Your fingers are cold, and 

 the hammers slipped away from you ; that's how it hap- 

 pened. Now, cock your gun, and leave it that way. 

 Keep your finger off the trigger, your thumb from the 

 hammers, and it won't occur again." 



He solemnly promised it should not happen again, 

 but it's an actual fact that his gun did go off again in 

 that same manner later in the day. He was nervous 

 and excitable, and in constant fear lest some accident 

 might happen with a cocked gun, so he kept the ham- 

 mers down; then when a duck came near or threatened 

 to approach us, he raised the hammers in anticipation 

 of a shot. If the duck swerved off, then the hammers 

 were lowered ; and this constant raising and lowering, 

 seconded with cold fingers and a nervous apprehension 

 that something might happen, was the cause of the un- 

 expected firing. Feeling that a change of air and a 

 little exercise might smooth his ruffled feelings, his at- 

 tention was called to a flock of mallards alighting in a 

 slough about a hundred yards from us. They were 

 coaxing flying ducks from our decoys, and at my sug- 

 gestion my companion went over to rout them out. He 

 was not gone long ; it didn't seem to me over ten 

 minutes, but on his return he was pleasantly surprised 

 to find lying on the water nine mallards which I had 

 killed while he was gone. They afforded me some of 

 the prettiest shooting I ever enjoyed. They came in, 

 in pairs, as fast as I could load and shoot, and the last 

 bird shot at was the one missed, the .first four pairs 

 having been killed in succession. Picking up the ducks 

 he carried them out on the dry bank, and tied them 

 together. Much to his astonishment, he found we had 



