THE WHISTLER 349 
louder and louder. Down! Down! Just one 
eye over the top of the rock blind and mind you 
don’t wink that eye! There! They have seen 
the ‘‘tolers’’ and here they come! Now they 
set their wings and drop like—like—well, like 
Whistlers that mean business. Just as the 
leaders hover over the decoys with wings out- 
spread let go at them, and as they rise the other 
barrel speaks. Well done! A few more 
chances like that and we shall make a bag of 
birds. 
These ducks are most uncertain fellows and 
cannot be judged by any set rule or precedent. 
You may have the finest flock of decoys ever 
seen and yet the Whistlers may choose to pass 
them by to decoy to one lone bird sitting in a 
small opening in the ice a hundred yards away. 
Why? I don’t know. Perhaps experience has 
taught them that a place where a gunner may 
hide is a pretty good place to look for him. Be 
sure that every duck that flies in will drop into 
that same spot until there is a raft of birds there 
large enough to satisfy all your wife’s relations. 
What to do then? Well, have you a sail 
aboard? Then let us push through or over the 
ice into that opening and set our decoys in the 
