86 



FOREST AND STREAM SUPPLEMENT. 



[Feb. 31, 1889. 



At Gladstone many of the villagers rely on the gun to 

 supplytheir table with meat in the duck shooting season. 

 Many derive no little revenue from the sport by selling 

 their game to local shippers. Every boy in the village 

 who is lucky enough to have a gun or fowling piece, 

 from an old rusty Government musket to a double barrel 

 shotgun, will sally forth at break of day in the morning 

 and will stay out until darkness closes in in the evening, 

 and they are not always amoBg the unlucky number. 

 Hunters come from inland towns many miles on either 

 side. Burlington, la., furnishes a good many, but not so 

 many now as formerly when every Sabbath was a holiday 

 for those employed in the city, who could not well get off 

 any other day. Then throughout the whole Sabbath the 

 reverberating echoes of the shotgun would awaken the 

 still air. and its constant and steady pound woidd be 

 heard for miles back beyond the bluffs. 



When game is to be shipped to market, it is taken to 

 the nearest railroad station, and if there be a carload on 

 hand a car is ordered and the birds tied in groups and 

 suspended from the roof and sides of the car as thick as 

 they can be conveniently packed, taking care, however, 

 to leave air passages for ventilation between them at 

 suitable intervals. In this way they reach market in a 

 good salable order, even though many of them may 

 have been killed a week, if it be cool weather in the 

 meantime. If for sale they are never thrown in heaps 

 at camp nor piled in bulk in shipping unless they are 

 few in number and are to be shipped but a short dis- 

 tance. During the busy season several carloads of these 

 birds have been shipped from one shipping point in a 

 week, while more or less are used for home consumption. 



This land containing these swamps has lately found its 

 way into different hands, as a large tract has been bought 

 up and turned over to be used entirely for sporting pur- 

 poses. A few years ago a syndicate of prominent sports- 

 men with capital behind them bought up a large tract of 

 this land lying a short distance out from the river bank, 

 around which they put a barb wire fence and erected a 

 fine club house. This house is on the railroad, the main 

 line of the C, B. & Q., which runs directly through the 

 club grounds, and was erected at no little expense. The 

 railroad company stop all local trains, and others if 

 necessary, at this place, which is known as the Crystal 

 Lake and Eagle Grove Club House, and is about three 

 miles out from Burlington . The house is run on the first- 

 olass hotel order, and is kept open the entire year. While 

 the hunting season does not occupy all of this time, the 

 fishing season begins as soon as the former closes, and 

 throughout the summer continues until the hunting 

 begins in the fall again, so that with the exception of a 

 month or so in the winter the grounds are continuously 

 occupied. Being a short distance out from Burlington, 

 throughout the long summer season it is a great place of 

 resort for pleasure seekers, who come out, ladies and 

 gentlemen, for a few hours' fishing. These club grounds, 

 however, include but a small portion of this duck shoot- 

 ing territory. S. H. McMillan. 



A BUNK IN A BLIND. 



TT^ITH a genuine feudal independence, the Lake 

 V T- Champlain duck shooter may claim that his blind 

 is his castle. It is undoubtedly the most elaborate affair 

 of the kind in use among the wildfowlers of the country. 

 Totally unlike the bush blind of the Eastern rivers, the 

 reed blind of the West or the box blind of the South, it 

 stands quite alone as a representative type of field archi- 

 tecture. It is, in fact, a miniature house, equipped with 

 all the paraphernalia of domestic economy, thoroughly 

 provisioned and fitted out to stand a siege of six weeks' 

 bombardment by the great army of southward-flying 

 ducks. Let us take a peep at one of these cosy Lake 

 Champlain ducking blinds. 



The house part of the blind is very nearly square, about 

 5x6ft., and 5|ft. high. It has a sloping roof to shed rain, 

 a door at the front end and a small window at one side. 

 On the opposite side there is a board slide which can be 

 opened to provide air or furnish an outlook. Across the 

 back end— the ends being the long sides of the blind— are 

 two bunks or berths, one over the other. A wide shelf 

 under the board slide answers the purpose of a table. 

 Heat and cooking faciUties are furnished by a small oil 

 stove standing in one corner by the door. In the other 

 corner is the "armory," a rack in which are placed the 

 guns of the occupant or occupants of the blind, con- 

 venient for immediate use. A cupboard under the lower 

 berth contains the dishes, cooking utensils, ammunition, 

 etc., of the garrison, while a big chest, answering also the 

 purpose of a bench, stands conveniently beneath the shelf 

 packed with provisions and other perishable supplies of 

 the gunners. So much for the interior of the house part 

 of the blind. The door opens upon a platform about 'Sift. 

 wide, railed all around and heavily bushed with cedar 

 or pine to such a height that the gunner when erect can 

 conveniently shoot over the wattled boughs. On the 

 front part of the platform is a long, trough-like pen in 

 which are confined the live decoys. The entire structure 

 which I have described is overlaid and concealed with 

 evergreen boughs, so that it looks like a dark green 

 mound standing on the edge, or in the midst of the shal- 

 low water. 



It may easily be imagined that duck shooting with such 

 comforts and advantages as are provided by these house- 

 blinds is most delightful sport. Especially charming is 

 it to have a brief, sweet taste of the sport for a few suc- 

 cessive days, in the midst of one's common vocation and 

 cares, to dri ve out, as I did, on a certain October evening, 

 straight from my office to the little cedar-covered snug- 

 gery of my friend at the mouth of the Lamoille River, 

 and bunk there for three blessed nights, with nothing to 

 do but to eat, and shoot, and sleep, and then, for variety, 

 to sleep, and shoot, and eat! The great busy world slipped 

 so completely out of consciousness that when I came back 

 to it I felt lik a Rip Van Winkle with the rags and tatters 

 of a twenty years' slumber fluttering about me. But, un- 

 like the venerable Van Winkle, I felt as though the vigOi 

 and gladness of youth had returned, instead of departed, 

 while I was helping my silentfriend with his keg of pow- 

 der, and listening to the bowling, thunderous echoes of 

 his 8-gauge among the surrounding hills. 



I shall never forget the first night — the night of my 

 arrival — and how I bunked like a rabbit in the heart of 

 that mound of cedar; how strange it was, how romantic, 

 with the great desolate flats behind us, stretching away 

 to the bases of the hills, and the broad lake in front, lap- 



ping all night long with its waves the platform of our 

 little house. 



First, when I had unloaded all my impedimenta, and 

 sent my team back to town, we had supper, and the get- 

 ting of it; one quite as delightful a process, to me, as the 

 other. We closed our little refuge to the chilling night 

 air, and sat down, in a space quite as circumscribed as 

 the old woman's in the shoe, to our culinarv operations. 

 The cheerful little oil stove furnished both light and heat. 

 Everything necessary had been laid out upon the shelf, 

 and we sat before it through all the operations that suc- 

 ceeded— preparing the food, cooking it, eating it, even 

 down to the dish-washing— without once stirring from 

 oin- places. 



There is magic in an oil stove, properly managed. The 

 wonderful rapidity and neatness with which it will de- 

 liver into the hands of an expert manipulator dish after 

 dish, all savory and smoking, can only be equalled by 

 that "hat from the audience" under the mazy motions of 

 the magician's wand. My friend in rapid succession 

 placed before me broiled duck, eggs boiled to a turn, 

 potatoes in cream, puffy flapjacks and steaming coffee — 

 to say nothing of his reserves, his bread, his doughnuts, 

 cookies, pies, apples and other home and boiighten 

 delights. To be brief, I was confronted with such an 

 array of edibles as would have surprised me out of an 

 appetite had I been less voraciously hungry than I was. 

 But on this occasion I ate and praised the cook by turns, 

 until everything disappeared as mysteriously as it came, 

 and a sense of delicious satisfaction had taken the place 

 of a hollow yearning within. Meanwhile, a pan of water 

 had been heating over the wicks, and, supper done, my 

 friend washed and I wiped the dishes. Then they were 

 stowed away in the cupboard for the night. 



Afterward we lit our pipes, and, turning our backs to 

 the shelf, looked out through the little window at the 

 stars. My friend, who had been on the ground a week or 

 more, told me of his daily successes and failures; how 

 Monday's had been a good flight and Tuesday no birds 

 had come in at all; how the evening flight compared 

 with the morning flights; how the big 8-gauge Scott; 

 decimated the flocks a.nd tumbled the wild ones at long 

 range, and how the 12-gauge Parker was sure death to 

 anything in the feathered line within 40yds. In return 

 I detailed the news of the town; what had happened 

 since he had been away; what were the principal topics 

 of gossip, and how business was thriving "under the 

 hill." National politics came up for intellectual dessert; 

 and by the time we had settled presidential possibilities 

 our pipes had twice burned to the stems, and we got us 

 to bed. 



Not one wink did I sleep all that night; but no dreams 

 could have made more of a wonderland of my surround- 

 ings. I was stretched at ease upon the lower berth, under 

 plentiful blankets. The slide over the shelf was slightly 

 open, and I could smell the fresh, clean odor of the flats 

 and the wide lake. Looking through the window on the 

 north, I could see the stars glinting with the steely 

 brightness of midnight. Various were the sounds that 

 came to my straining ears. Overhead my friend was 

 snoring lustily in his bunk. From the pen outside came, 

 every now and then, the restless rustle and quacking of 

 the decoys. A light breeze rippled the water, and the 

 waves lapped the edges of the platform and gurgled 

 underneath it. There were also sounds from further 

 away; some of them mysterious, some easily accounted 

 for. Once or twice I heard a great splash in the water, 

 which, I suppose, was the announcement of a late- 

 arriving flock of ducks. Occasionally a loon laughed and 

 screamed far out on the lake. There were mysterious 

 rustlings in the air, like the swift passage of many small 

 birds. From the hills came the hooting of an owl, and 

 also certain mournful, plaintive cries, which I could not 

 assign to any living creature. Often, too, there were 

 soft stirrings on the roof above, and sudden taps and 

 concussions, as though some small object had dropped 

 there from a considerable height. 



I lay there with all my senses alert until the stars be- 

 gan to pale and a gray film seemed drawn acr oss the 

 sky. Minute by minute it grew visibly lighter; and at 

 last my friend stirred, turned over with a long, regretful 

 sigh, and poked his head over the edge of his bunk. 



"Ho, hum! Are you awake, Paul?" 



"I should say I was." 



"How long have you been awake?" 



"Since 7 o'clock yesterday morning." 



"Weil, 1 declare! Didn't you get a nap all night long?" 



"Never once closed my eyes." 



"It was the coffee!" exclaimed my friend. "I never 

 thought about that. Well, we must get up. The ducks 

 will be flying soon." Down came a long leg, narrowly 

 escaping a foothold on my head, and balancing on the 

 edge of the lower bunk, my friend dropped lightly back- 

 ward on the floor. I followed at once, and we both got 

 into our outer garments with all expedition, for it was 

 distinctly cold. 



"We won't have breakfast until after the first flight," 

 said my friend. He drew on his dogskin jacket, strug- 

 gled into his rubber hip boots, and went out on the plat- 

 form. Presently I heard a great commotion among the 

 live decoys, and then a splash as my friend opened the 

 little gate and stepped off into the water. "It's an ele- 

 gant morning!" he exclaimed, as I emerged, muffled to 

 the ears. "Just enough wind to keep^ the ducks flying, 

 and not enough to drift the shot." He stooped, and 

 anchored the drake in about 8ft. of water, directly in 

 front of the blind. Then he came back to the pen. and 

 let loose all the ducks, which went skittering away with 

 a joyous clamor, and settled around their quacking lord. 

 There sat the whole flock, dancing on the water and 

 preening themselves, as pretty a sight as one could wish 

 to see in the gray of the morning. 



My friend stood admiring the picture for a minute, and 

 then stepped inside and brought out his big 8-gauge gun. 

 Dropping in a couple of enormous shells, he leaned the 

 gun against the railing of the blind, and then stood slap- 

 ping his hands on his shoulders and gazing out into the 

 still, thick and blurred air of the early morning. 



"Hark!" he suddenly exclaimed. "They are beginning 

 to move. Better go in and get your gun." 



From far overhead, faint and vanishing as elfin music, 

 came the sound of the swiftly -cutting wings of a flock of 

 ducks. The shrill, mysterious, vibratory monotone had 

 a strange sort of fascination about it. We listened with 

 bending heads until the last faint pulsation of the air 

 had ceased. Then I went inside and got my gun and a 



box of shells. "Bring the Parker too," called my friend. 

 So I emerged with a gun in each hand. 



At that very instant the expression of my friend's face, 

 and the attitude of his body, underwent a startling and 

 sudden change. He ducked down behind the cedar 

 boughs, with intense excitement animating every feature, 

 and while one hand stole to the barrels of the 8 gauge the 

 other motioned vigorously for me to subside. I did so, 

 crouching upon the floor with a gun on each side of me. 

 "Load up, quick!" whispered my friend. "Mark right — 

 ready!" 



iVt the word he stood up, the hammers of the big gun 

 clicking as he rose. I was in the act of dropping a shell 

 into the left barrel of my Greener hammerless. The boom 

 of the Scott drowned the snap of the barrels, so I locked 

 them and sprang to my feet. Boom, again. The light 

 was so dim I could see only a confused mass of objects 

 towering skyward above the" decoys. There was a great 

 fluttering in the water, and the air was full of the rush 

 of wings. Throwing up my light 12-gauge I singled out 

 a duck that had separated from the main mass and was 

 swinging off to the left. The Greener cracked spitefully, 

 and the bird, folding its wings, dropped like lead into 

 the water. The left barrel I fired at random into the 

 now disappearing flock, apparently without any result. 

 Meanwhile my friend had hastily loaded the Parker, and 

 with two rapid shots stopped a couple of cripjdes that 

 were making off as fast as they could swim. 



"Well, that was pretty quick work," he cried gleefully . 

 "Six redheads inside of a minute and a half. You 

 dropped that quartering bird very neatly. 



"1 didn't expect to," I replied, modestly; "but accidents 

 will happen in spite of the best regulated carelessness. I 

 fired wholly without aim." 



"Do so some more," cried my friend, as he waded out 

 to retrieve the birds which the waves were drifting in. 

 Five of them had fallen to the destructive 8-gauge; "but, 

 though I didn't tell my friend so, I was prouder with my 

 one bird, kilted clean with S^drs. of powder and loz. 

 of shot, than he could possibly be of his three slaughtered 

 innocents and two crippled, brought down by those suc- 

 cessive, wide-spreading hailstorms of shot, aggregating 

 5oz. of lead from both barrels of his Scott. But duck 

 shooting is duck shooting, America over, and in some 

 localities my friend's 8-gauge would be considered a 

 mere popgun, and his method charity itself, compared 

 with the death-dealing practices of the native gunner. 



It was now beginning to grow fairly light, and the 

 whistle of ducks' wings far out on the water in every 

 direction told us that the birds were on the move from 

 their bedding to their feeding grounds. We piled six 

 redheads on the platform and crouched down to wait for 

 further developments. Our decoys, inspired with the 

 old, wild yearning after freedom by the associations 

 of the place and hour, flapped their wings, lifted them- 

 selves bodily out of the water and clamored lustily to 

 their brethren on the lake and in the air. Had it not 

 been for the stout string that held the drake to his 

 anchor, doubtless our entire fleck would have merrily 

 skimmed away to join their kin. At is was, however, 

 their excitement and clamor only served to lure their 

 wild cousins into unsuspected danger. 



Through a convenient loophole my friend kept close 

 watch of the shifting flocks and groups of wildfowl. 

 "Keep low till I give you the word," was his caution, 

 "Ducks are getting to be very suspicious; and no wonder, 

 they have been shot at so much." We had not been 

 crouching behind the green rampart more than five min- 

 utes when I saw my friend's grasp tighten on the big 

 gun. He shifted his position a little, looked sharply off 

 to the left and then said in a low voice, "Here come some 

 of those little blue-winged teals. They won't pitch, but 

 we'll rake them as they go by. Now, then, mack left, 

 ready!" 



We popped up like jacks in a box, just as some eight or 

 ten of those wonderfully swift-flying little fellows, the 

 blue-winged teals, skimmed past outside the decoys. 

 Boom! Crack! Then a mingled boom and crack and it 

 was all over — with most of the teals. Seven of them lay 

 dead or fluttering in the water. The big gun had done 

 its work again; I was too modest before its stupendous 

 powers of destruction to claim a single bird. I knew 

 that I had selected my pair, but had too much respect for 

 the comprehensiveness of the 8-gauge to believe that I 

 dropped them. Again the Parker came into play and 

 the cripples were quieted. 



"Isn't this immense!" exclaimed my friend, all aglow 

 with righteous self-satisfaction. 



"Yes, it is — immense slaughter," I responded some- 

 what ruefully. 



"Ah, yes, you mean a big bag," said my friend, conde- 

 scendingly. "You will learn the stock expressions in 

 time." He dropped a couple more of the big shells into 

 the 8-gauge and sallied out after teals. 



Fortunately— for my peace of mind at least— no more 

 flocks were decoyed during the morning flight. Occa- 

 sional bunches of three or four, with pairs and singles, 

 gave us some delightful shooting of a more sportsmanlike 

 kind. My friend speedily discarded the 8-gauge for this 

 fine work and made some very pretty single shots with 

 the 12-gauge Parker, which I praised* as they deserved. 

 As for myself, I occasionally dropped a bird, but more 

 frequently an exclamation of disgust, which seemed to 

 tickle my friend immensely. But the climax came when 

 he proposed that I should try the 8-gauge! Then I indig- 

 nantly retired to the house part of the blind, and began 

 pealing potatoes for breakfast. 



Oh, the romance of those October days and nights in 

 the blind! The morning flights and the evening flights; 

 the snipe shooting on the flats; the excursions up the 

 river banks for woodcock! It all came to an end too soon: 

 and yet they were long days and happy days, and long 

 nights and happy nights — after I learned h®w to sleep in 

 a bunk under cedar boughs, with a pint of strong coffee 

 singing through all my neiwes. I felt as though I had 

 lived a primeval life for ages, when I mounted into my 

 buggy on the appointed day and said good-by to my 

 friend. The wagon groaned with a mighty heap of 

 ducks, and my friend smiled as he said: 



"Tell the boys I am having pretty good luck," 



"No need of that," I replied, looking down at the spoils; 

 "they'll recognize your work." 



As I rode over the brow of the hill behind the flats, a 

 mile away, I heard the dull, throbbing roar of the 8-gauge, 

 and knew that another flock of wildfowl had suddenly 

 been wiped out of the fauna of North America. 



Paul Pastnor, 



