346 FEATHERED GAME 
gun, and, stepping out of his blind, to run 
briskly away for a hundred yards just to shake 
loose the icicles in his blood. About the time 
he turns at the end of his breath he will see a 
nice bunch of Whistlers just leaving his decoys. 
This rule is invariable. Moral: Don’t do it. 
You may freeze to death, but stick by the blind. 
I think that, given a good flock of decoys and a 
good position, the rest lies more in the ability of 
the sportsman to keep quiet and hidden than in 
any unwillingness of the birds to decoy. The 
Whistler is very quick to see a movement or 
perceive any little matter out of the common. 
When he does not like the appearance of things 
he can not be induced to come anywhere near. 
The gunner, too, must pay the strictest atten- 
tion and shoot the instant his game is in the 
right place, for once he is seen or treachery 
suspected they go climbing into the sky like 
rockets. 
A fair amount of sport may be had in this 
way if the gunner can endure the cold, for it is 
a pretty rugged kind of amusement. To get 
some shooting on a winter’s morning it is only 
necessary to set a string of decoys off some 
ledge of rocks where an open space of water 
