RECREATION. 



•65 



What kind ? What would I do with 

 them ? 



The atmosphere, however, had a cool- 

 ing influence. The planets burned bril- 

 liantly in a setting of deep morning 

 twilight. The absolute silence with which 

 night was lifting herself, made it far 

 more impressive to me than darkness, 

 dawn or daylight. It seemed to bring 

 me in converse with the stars, the only 

 observers ; and as we exchanged glances, 

 I fancied they seemed aware that I un- 

 derstood their appeals to the night to 

 " wait ! wait !" 



The river certainly was dreaming, for 

 as my birchen wand swept gently through 

 it, I found myself interpreting the soft 

 sound as a sigh, and hesitated, lest I 

 should disturb its tranquillity. 



Hank, unconscious of my adoration 

 of the sublime, would often break the 

 spell by a direction as to my use of the 

 paddle, thus bringing me back to the 

 realities and, blowing a kiss to Jupiter, 

 I settled down to real work. Our di- 

 rection being the North Channel and 

 down stream, we progressed rapidly. 

 But where was our strong west wind ? 

 It had veered around to the south ; and, 

 moreover, by five o'clock the stars had 

 closed their eyes and had begun to weep, 

 a fine misty rain sifting down. The 

 dawn, instead of being the beautiful one 

 I had anticipated was a desolate, gray 

 one. 



By six o'clock we had passed Dinkin- 

 son's, Roby's and Deadman's islands. 

 It was at an ancient homestead on the 

 bank of the mainland where lives Bra- 

 bant, the old French punter, that we 

 saw the first signs of life, a light moving 

 about the barn. Hank gave his "ahoy !" 

 which was answered by the dogs. The 

 old man also came down and predicted 

 ''no sport for to-day." 



"Mais, je crois que vous vous trom- 

 pez," I answered. He then spied me, 

 and jabbered something I could not un- 

 derstand. His patois was as unintelli- 

 gible as his curiosity was amusing. He 

 discouraged our going, but I refused to 

 turn back, and we paddled on past the 

 Miller farm and Walton's salt block ; 

 coming, soon after, in view of the broad, 

 open lake and marshes. These are pos- 

 itively unnavigable without the guidance 

 of an experienced punter. They include 

 miles and miles of reeds and rushes, 

 traversed by tortuous little channels. 



Hank, standing, poled us through dense 

 thickets of them to a little opening he 

 called "Goose bay." 



On the margin of this, quietly con- 

 cealed, we waited. I had been cautioned 

 that absolute silence was essential to 

 success in duck shooting. Rather hard 

 on a woman ! Hank motioned me to 

 get my gun ready. This was unneces- 

 sary, for I had carried it at half-cock for 

 the last hour. He imitated a duck's 

 cry, when from almost beside me rose a 

 fowl which so startled me that I was al- 

 most paralyzed, but for a second only. 

 I raised my gun excitedly, and, merely 

 pointing in the direction of the bird, 

 without waiting to aim, fired first one 

 barrel then the other, in the most dazed 

 manner, shouting to Hank : 



" See! there it goes, quick, there it 

 goes." 



Stage fright is nothing like so bad. 

 Hank gasped, and, looking as though he 

 doubted my sanity, asked why on earth 

 I wasted two loads on a " durned old 

 mud-hen." 



" Was I disgusted ?" Yes, I was al- 

 most ready to use woman's most effect- 

 ive weapon — tears. I fancied my pun- 

 ter thinking to himself, "bad enough to 

 shoot without aim, but only a woman 

 would be stupid enough to mistake a 

 mud-hen for a duck." With fingers still 

 aquake, and feeling very foolish, I re- 

 loaded. Then followed a long spell of 

 waiting, listening and imitating, before 

 we pulled away. I began to fear old 

 Brabant knew his business and that this 

 was no day for ducks. 



After sneaking through various nar- 

 row, winding channels, we came to a lit- 

 tle, crooked stream, called by the natives 

 " Sny Bo-ro (Chenal-a-Bout-Rond), and 

 suddenly, without a sign of warning, 

 Hank exchanged paddle for gun and 

 fired, grabbed up his paddle, and, with 

 eyes glued on one spot, hurried the 

 boat along the outside. While I, hold- 

 ing my tongue and straining my eyes, 

 could say nothing, see nothing. Now 

 he turned the boat sharply in again 

 among the reeds where, struggling with 

 one leg and a maimed wing, was a duck, 

 a little blue-bill, trying to work its way 

 to a clump of reeds and arrow-head 

 plants. 



Sensations of commiseration and pity 

 for the poor little struggler nearly over- 

 came me, but Hank, turning his back, 



