THE ADMIRABLE tSHMAELITES 



437 



our hearts are of the gypsy kind, and so we 

 hunt where we may— and we sometimes 

 come back with a heap better bags than our 

 neighbors who sit in their thousand-dollar 

 blinds all day long to kill ducks and snipe 

 that have been coaxed within range by 

 abundance of feed and countless kindnesses 

 by the keeper of the club land. 



Well, as I have said, we let ourselves off 

 the car; it whizzed on toward the little 

 beach town, and we wandered slowly along 

 the track in its wake. On either side of the 

 roadbed, where dirt has been scooped out 

 to raise the rails to their necessary elevation, 

 little wet-weather pools have formed. Here, 

 ere we had gone very far, appeared a snipe 

 of some sort. He was very wary, out of 

 range and seemingly ready at any moment 

 to spread his wings in flight. Down the 

 other side of the embankment we went, 

 slipping along until we thought we were 

 opposite the place where we had last seen 

 the bird. Then it was uphill right quick for 

 us and a snap shot as he rose with the 

 "scaip, scaip, scaip" of a jacksnipe. The 

 gun cracked, the bird crumpled up in mid- 

 air and fell exactly on the top wire of one of 

 the fences, and there he hung. The dog 

 looked at me; I looked at the dog 

 said "Wat V ell." Where on 

 earth did that jacksnipe come 

 from and what was he doing out 

 here, feeding on the edge of an 

 open pool, just like an ordinary 

 long-legs or a tattler? He is no 

 plebeian— this wind-borne wan- 

 derer of wet upland meadows, 

 and he does not as a rule asso- 

 ciate with beach birds nor adhere 

 to any of their feeding grounds, 

 but here he was, or rather only 

 one of him. Verily there is no 

 accounting for jacksnipe tastes. 



And then I sent my dog after 

 the bird, where it hung, head 

 downward, caught by one feath- 

 ered leg. I knew he could not 

 reach the top wire o£ the fence; 

 knew his first move after he had 

 tried all his own methods would 

 be to send for me, and yet, in- 

 stead of going afler him myself, 

 I sent my dog. Scarcely had :he 

 slipped .through the, fence when, 



We both 



from the grasses at his very feet, up rose 

 two more snipe. There I had missed the 

 opportunity of a lifetime, that of walking 

 right into the midst of a whole covey of 

 these pretty snipe. As it was, my dog went 

 flat on his belly and I sent a charge of num- 

 ber nines whizzing after the nearer bird. 

 But it was too far, even for the hard-shooting 

 little twenty, and I did not even see a feather 

 drop. As I expected, he could not get the 

 bird and I had eventually to go and retrieve 

 it myself. This involved the wading of the 

 pool as well as a rod or so of thick black 

 mud, all of which did not add to the ap- 

 pearance of my knee-high boots — I had not 

 thought it worth while to wear waders; but 

 the game was worth the trouble, for of all 

 shore-birds give me the plump Wilson's 

 snipe when in the fall plumage. Smooth- 

 feathered, round-bodied, graceful, whether 

 alive or dead, he compares well with that 

 other beauty of the marsh, the mallard 

 drake. 



So we idled along down the roadbed, 

 stopping here to throw a stone at a mud- 

 turtle, there to watch the curving flight of 

 some great band of widgeon as it settled 

 down on one of the duck club's pools for the 

 night. Of all outdoors, the life of the marsh, 



THIS IS THE SMALLER ISHMAELITE HE KNOWS MORE THAN| 



HIS MASTER 



