THE WHISTLER 347 
gives a chance for a duck to get his breakfast. 
Be sure you are completely hidden and keep 
quiet,—the golden rule of all duck shooting. 
Just before sun-up the first of ocean’s toilers 
begin to appear,—the gulls going lazily across 
the water to some inshore feeding ground for 
their morning meal. Seaward the sombre 
cloudbank reddens with the coming light and the 
islands become more than the shadowy masses 
which they have been ever since our arrival. A 
faint noise like a high-pitched whistle sounded 
rapidly and continuously, calls your attention 
skyward where a single duck is speeding his 
way past, bound up the bay. Suddenly he 
sights the decoys, black specks upon a mirror of 
polished steel, swings in a wide circle to lee- 
ward and with set wings drops out of the air 
with swift, slanting flight. Right in among the 
“‘tolers’’ he comes with a splash, then, discov- 
ering the cheat leaps into the air to escape. 
Even as he spreads his wings a gun roars forth 
its summons to surrender, and in the obedience 
he may not deny the poor bird topples into the 
sea. The float is launched and the prize 
brought ashore. The gunner crouches again in 
his ice- and sea-weed-covered blind just as a 
