MY DEATH VALLEY CAME PRESERVE 



493 



atoga Springs Clubhouse" is not immi- 

 nently probable. 



When the excitement incident to the 

 discovery of the ducks had subsided a 

 bit, I wandered down to the lakeside 

 one afternoon and built a sort of blind 

 on a short neck of land running out 

 through the tules. Therein next morn- 

 ing at about five o'clock I ensconced 

 myself, my little single-barreled 20- 

 gauge collecting gun across my knees 

 and a box of nitro shells at my feet. I 

 was shooting two drams of powder and 

 three-quarters of an ounce of chilled 

 No. 7 shot. Rather a heavy load for so 

 little a gun ? Well, it may have been, 

 but I have shot the same over many a 

 flooded field and I never came home 

 empty-handed yet. Neither did I ever 

 get the "limit," but limit bags are not 

 to my liking or to my needs, and one 

 bird well and cleanly killed with the 

 little 20 is worth two brought down 

 with a 10 or a 12. 



But I get argumentative when I talk 

 about my little pet, and I started in to 

 talk duck. Presently the black dark- 

 ness gave way to the sun's red rise — 

 for there is no inter-shadow of twilight 

 at either end of the day on this part of 

 the desert — and almost out of the very- 

 eye of the sun came a pair of mallards. 

 Driving easily down country, they had 

 probably come from some far, hidden 

 lake, Owens or Mono or Tahoe, dur- 

 ing the night and now they were quite 

 ready to drop to the lure of the many 

 birds that the sun disclosed feeding on 

 the surface of the lake. On and on 

 they came, until they were directly over 

 a small raft of teal riding about twenty 

 yards to my left. For a moment they 

 hung with many wing flappings and in 

 that peculiar manner which distin- 

 guishes a greenhead about to alight as 

 far as the eye can see — and then the lit- 

 tle gun spoke out with a ripple of crack- 

 ing air not unlike the report of a 45-9° 

 using nitro powder. 



For the space of a long, deep breath, 

 there was no cessation of the big duck's 

 wing beats ; he seemed as much alive as 

 ever. Then, all at once, he crumpled 



up like a bit of crushed paper and fell 

 without a sound into the lake. His 

 mate was a gray-brown blur above the 

 sandhills, but the teal, apparently not 

 overmuch disturbed by the slight re- 

 port, only betook themselves, some by 

 swimming and some by flight, to the 

 further end of the pond. Thither, pres- 

 ently, I followed them, and succeeded 

 in bagging one as he drove out over the 

 sandhills — a long shot for the little gun, 

 and one which gave me the added ad- 

 vantage of picking my bird up off dry 

 ground. With the mallard afloat on the 

 pond, the case was different ; he was 

 some thirty feet from the nearest point 

 of shore, and not the mines of Solomon 

 would have induced me to swim out 

 after him. Fortune favored me again 

 in this, however, and after I had made 

 the circuit of the lake and returned to 

 the blind the wind veered and filled a 

 bit, so that eventually the duck came to 

 rest amid the sedges at my feet. In 

 some duck ponds that I could name a 

 muskrat would have drowned that mal- 

 lard long ere I got him, and I myself 

 was surprised that some one of the 

 large falcons we could see high in air 

 on almost any clear day had not seized 

 him. 



By continued walking about the lake 

 I imagine I could have accumulated 

 quite a bag, but I preferred to sit it out 

 in the rude blind, watching the wild 

 life about me. Coots were everywhere, 

 little marsh wrens called in cheery 

 notes one to the other, a song sparrow 

 sang as though this were his last song 

 forever and forever, instead of only a 

 prelude to his regular evening riot of 

 melody that he was wont to pour out to 

 us from a clump of tules just behind 

 the camp, and occasionally a rabbit 

 moved on the grassy slope beyond the 

 lake. After awhile the excitement died 

 down, however, the teal came swim- 

 ming back, and pretty soon I picked a 

 "spoonie" out of a bunch of seven that 

 sailed too low over my hiding-place. 

 Then, in another trip around the pond, 

 I got another teal, so that I now had 

 four nice ducks ; later I had the good 



