42 MEN I HAVE FISHED WITH. 



than the rulers of kingdoms for he was my ideal of the 

 highest form of manhood. I may as well say right here 

 that this was my ideal fifteen years later, and was lived up 

 to as closely as possible ; personal freedom from dictation 

 by others, a love of nature, and, above all, a sense of per- 

 fect independence, caused me to cast civilization aside, 

 and whisper it after six years return, not a prodigal, 

 but, like him, with a flag of truce in the rear, which the 

 small boy terms "a letter in the post-office." 



The pigeons were flying well one October day, and I 

 had about twenty. They were in scattered flocks seeking 

 mast, and my neck was stiff from looking upward for 

 them. Often a dozen would start from a tree where none 

 was seen, and a wing shot was not possible, if I had been 

 capable of it. Resting on a log and watching the open 

 for a flight to come, and, like Irving' s skipper, who guided 

 his craft up the Hudson, "thinking of nothing in the past, 

 the present or the future," I suddenly became aware that 

 a man stood beside me. The leaves were damp from a 

 two days' rain, a high-hole was drumming away on an old 

 stub near by, and a couple of blue jays were scolding about 

 something perhaps about men and, being intent on 

 watching for pigeons to come my way, the whole com- 

 bination favored a silent approach that a falling shadow 

 was the first intimation of. The stranger said : 



"There's a big flock feedin' on beechnuts over there in 

 Teller's woods, an' they may come this way; there's some- 

 body just south of 'em, 'cause the crows all left there a- 

 hollerin'." 



He was a small man, rather thin, but wiry, clothing 

 not noticeable except a little faded, a keen gray eye and 

 a light double gun were the first impressions made by the 

 speaker. For young men it might be well to say that all 

 guns in those days were muzzle-loaders, and that the use 



