V 



CHAPTER I. 



THE CHIEF TEMPTS ME. 



THE way it began was thus : The three of us were talking com- 

 fortably one evening over our cigars, only mine was a pipe, 

 when the question of duck-shooting arose. 



Now I am duck daffy. That is to say, I would go almost any 

 distance to get a crack at some good, high-flying ducks. I have gone 

 some considerable number of miles, such as across the Continent, to 

 try the quack-quack birds. Puget Sound, and the California Coast, 

 Gulf of Mexico, Chesapeake Bay and a goodly number of points betwixt 

 and between have echoed to the "come-and-get-it" voice of my 

 shotgun, and resounded to the thwack of a hard-struck duck hitting 

 the water on his way from the clouds sometimes. There were other 

 times when the duck went on to the place it had started for before 

 I shot. But anyway I succeed in getting a sufficient number of 

 them when I am where they are to make the game interesting. 



The subject of ducks arose, I say, and the Chief, a Scotchman 

 born, though a "bloomin' cosmopolite," said to me : "What you want 

 to do, old man, is to come to Scotland and shoot durks with me. I'll 

 give you five hundred shots in a day at good, swift, high-flying mallards, 

 coming to you over a forest and from a hill. Come next year, why 

 don't you? (this was in the fall of 1910) and I will guarantee you a 

 chance to kill your share of a thousand ducks-" 



Naturally, I sat up at the invitation. "Why," I gasped, "there is 

 no place in Scotland where you can find ducks in such quantities as 

 that ! What the deuce do you mean ? Of course, it's good of you to 

 ask me to shoot with you, but when you talk about ducks in such 

 numbers as that, you must be dreaming." 





