180 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
(Feb. 22, 18U6 
UNCLE LISHA'S OUTING.— XIII. 
"The wild duck, as he ecuds along, 
Seeth thine eye of hlack, 
And cries with shrill, despairing tone, 
"Do n't shoot, old boy, I'm coursing down; 
I know you, Cousin Jack!" 
"Hebe's another duck o' your'n," Sam addressed the 
stranger as the other boat drew near. "You 'pear tu git 
ev'y bird 'at you p'int at." 
"No, not quite," said the gentleman, for such he was. 
and a handsome one too, with keen black eyes and finely 
cut features and an easy graceful bearing. "I've heard 
of men who did that and heard them tell of doing it, but 
I never saw them do it. But you'd better take this bird, 
you're quite welcome to it." 
"No, thank ye," said Sam, "me an' this man's a-gittin' 
more shots 'an we c'n 'tend tu. My, you'd ortu seen us 
make the feathers fly up the East Slang." Sam felt that 
open confession might ease his soul. 
"Don' you tol' him, Sam," Antoine whispered hoarsely. 
"Ont we shem 'nough for had we a.n' de dauk know it?" 
"Wal, go ahead, mister," said Sam, and the other boat 
took the lead. 
' 'He hain't got him no gre't of a paddler," Sam remarked 
as he watched the clumsy propelling of the larger craft, 
paddled now on one side, now on the other. "I sh'd like 
tu put him raound a spell." 
There were ducks enough scattered among the wild rice 
to afford fair shooting, though the great flocks had re- 
turned to their daytime haunts, the dusky ducks to float 
on the wide waters of the lake or to bask on its rocky 
shores, whither the teal accompanied them, while the 
wood ducks congregated in the embowered lagoons of 
Lewis Creek, the South Slang and Goose Creek. There, in 
listless enjoyment of seclusion, they swam lazily in the 
shallow poolB, checkering the green scum of floating durk 
weed with a network of water paths, or sat in sleepy rows 
along the mossy trunks of fallen trees, oftener disturbtd 
by a swooping hawk or prowling fox or mink than by man, 
the enemy and destroyer of nature. 
Sam marveled at the celerity with which his rival made 
his shots, only missing often enough to prove that there 
was no magic in the skill which Sam expressed admir- 
ation of, in spite of the humiliation of seeing himself so 
far outdone. 
"By the gre't horn spoon, he's a buster!" hp exclaimed, 
as two ducks, rising at once on either side ot the channel, 
responded to a double shot with folded wings and a 
downright fall. "But I sh'ld like tu try him a hack with 
a rifle." 
"Oh, t'under, Ah'll tol' you it was jes' he's gaun," 
growled Antoine, contemptuously. " 'F Ah'll had gaun 
sem lak dat Ah'll show you, me." 
"I s'pose his gun does ha' suthin' tu du with it, but I 
swan I b'lieve arter the ducks git him l'arnt, they'd jest 
faint away and tumble daown if he p'inted a stick at 
'em." 
Sam and Antoine ran the canoe among the rushes 
under the willows of the lower landing alongside the 
craft of the sportsman, who had preceded them by 
twenty minutes and was now at the foot of the cliff with 
his boatman making preparation for dinner, the first 
plucking a fat young wood duck, the other gathering dry 
fuel out of the abundance of driftwood. 
"Naow, mister," said Sam, as he fed his admiring eyes 
on the handsome English guns whose like he had never 
seen before and his fingers itched to lay hold of, "why 
don't ye come up tu aour fire an' cook your dinner? It'll 
save ye a lot o' fussin', an' Joseff '11 be mighty glad o' 
them feathers you're a-wastin'. He come a-feather 
huntin', leastways he's a-savin' of 'em for -tu keep his 
wife good natured. Fetch your stuff right up where it's 
handy cookia' an' we'll put a couple o' extry 'taters in 
the kittle for ye." 
The stranger was drawn to Sam by the attraction of 
one honest sportsman to another and therefore nothing 
loth to accept the invitation. Carrying the half -plucked 
duck in one hand and one of the guns in the other, and 
followed by his man carrying a covered basket, he climbed 
the steep path with his host in the lead. 
They found the camp untenanted, for Uncle Lisha and 
Joseph had not yet returned from a land expedition along 
the shore in the direction of the Slang bridge, upon which 
they had set forth with the intention of stalking ducks in 
the pond holes of the marsh or lying in wait for incoming 
flocks. 
Antoine soon had a Are blazing on the stone hearth, 
which he shared with the guest in the preparation of the 
two dinners. The gentleman now proved himself a thor- 
oughly accomplished sportsman, for when his end of the 
fire sank to a glowing bed of coals he broiled his neatly 
dressed duck as skillfully as he had killed it, and its deli- 
cate aroma asserted itself above the grosser odor of 
Antoine's cookery. When the double meal was served 
he made two-fold return for the acceptable potatoes in 
dainties from his basket, and when all were so well fed 
that necessity of providing another meal seemed too dis- 
tant to be worth thinking of, he passed around cigars that 
were more fragant than roses. While all but he smoked 
them with the awkwardness of unaccustomed use, he 
half won Sam's heart with well-told tales of his shooting 
adventures in all parts of the country, and completed the 
conquest by interested listening to Sam's stories. 
W hen Sam hinted he would like to paddle him up the 
South Slang the offer was gladly accepted. So the two 
set forth in the sportsman's boat, leaving his boatman and 
Antoine to amuse themselves as they would, an arrange- 
ment to the liking of both, as it gave Antoine an oppor- 
tunity to ask many questions, he being tormented with 
an itching curiosity as much as any Kankee ever was, and 
the boatman, a lazy fellow, would as lief be paid for doing 
nothing as for earning his money. 
Sam plied his noiseless paddle with right good will up 
the narrow channel, whose brown waters here and there 
turned sharply in its almost currentless course to long 
curved or straight reaches that ended in other turns 
among the rice and sedges. Now there would be a still- 
ness that was absolute but for far-removed sounds of farm 
life or the skyward scream of a hawk, a mote of bronze 
slowly circling as if adrift in an eddy of the upper air; or, 
nfatvr, some unseen stir of life among the rushes, the 
alow scratch of a weed against the boat's side or the 
smothered gulp of a disturbed mud fish beneath the prow. 
Then the silence was broken suddenly enough to startle the 
steadiest nerves when splashing and fluttering, squeaking 
or quacking in wild alarm, wood duck or dusky duck 
tore its way upward through their tent of sedge or rice- 
stalks. Then the ready gun made its quick selection, 
puffed out its smoke and thunder, answered itself like an 
echo with a second report, and two ducks dropped back 
limp and lifeless within the circling wavelets of their own 
uprising, while the echoes rebounded between the wooded 
shores, and far and near frightened ducks arose, bitterns 
took wing with guttural squawks, rails set up a clamor- 
ous cackle, and for a few moments the marshes were alive 
with noisy commotion. Then, while the echoes died in 
the distance, the ducks settled again in the marsh further 
before or behind the boat, the babble of the rails ceased, 
the last wads were driven home with a diminuendo of 
hollow thuds, and after the sharp click of the recapped 
locks the silent boat moved on into a new silence again 
and again to break it. Now it slid under the low span of 
a bridge, now came to the mouth of Goose Creek, almost 
closed between its jams of floating bog that undulated 
with the boat's wake with a faint rustle of sedgy swells. 
As the craft squeezed its way up this narrow water path, 
here closed by a movable island of bog that was swung 
aside like agate to give them passage, there crowded by 
a tangled jungle of button bush, the hunters saw in trod- 
den ooze and the windrows of shed plumage evidence of 
the throngs of waterfowl that made this natural fortress 
their nightly resting place. There were now only a few 
stragglers— early to bed or late to rise— one of whom, cut 
down at long range, they had infinite trouble to retrieve 
by wading over the treacherous bog. 
In one place a woodcock had bored the muddy margin 
with his long bill and chalked it with his sign, which was 
scarcely noted before he sprang with a twittering whistle 
and was cut down with a snap shot of the alert sports- 
man. Then for the first time Sam had an opportunity to 
admire and closely inspect what had until now been but 
an elusive, vanishing myth, and wondered why his new 
friend should gloat more over this little bird than over a 
great duck. Yet he himself had just declared that he 
would be prouder to kill a wild goose than to kill a bear, 
as much to the astonishment of the other. 
They followed the crooked labyrinth of Goose Creek 
till it forked into two branches, both too narrow to give 
passage to anything bulkier than a duck or muskrat. 
They made their way back to the Slang, which from this 
point to its source was the eastern boundary of a large 
tract of primeval forest, a level sameness of gloomy ever- 
green woods. 
Where the channel parted in two unboatable tributaries, 
one coming out of the cold heart of the foreBt, the other 
from the sunny bosom of the fields, the Indians had made 
their camp. A number of stretched muskrat skins were 
hung about it, the thin smoke of the spent fire drifted up 
among the hemlock boughs, the canoe was drawn up to 
the bank with its two paddles stuck in the mud beside it, 
and the two Waubanakees, full heirs of their wild fore- 
fathers' laziness, were pottering indolently over some piece 
of handicraft. 
"They're a-makin' a canew," Sam said, after watching 
them a little; "want tu go an' see haow they du it?" and 
his companion assenting, he turned the boat inshore. 
The Indians were aware of the approach of visitors, but 
gave no sign of it when the boat ran alongside the canoe 
and the occupants stepped ashore, nor till they had come 
close to them, where they were kneeling on a patch of 
hard trodden bare earth. Then Sam's old acquaintance 
turned his good-humored, face to them a moment and 
greeted them with alow-spoken "Quiee," but his sullen 
companion did not lift his eyes from his work. 
The top frame and gunwales and cross bars of a canoe lay 
on the leveled piece of ground, and the Indians were 
driving stakes at the ends and at the interstices of the 
cross bars. Having accomplished this, they filled and 
lighted their pipes and deliberated upon the next step to 
be taken in the task, conversing in the soft, low tones of 
their own language. At last he of the sour visage picked 
up a hatchet and went into the woods, which enfolded 
him out of sight in their shadowy embrace as if he be- 
longed to them. It did not seem likely that the white 
men were to see more of the art of canoe building to-day, 
and so Sam's friend bought a couple of bows and a half a 
dozen arrows for his two boys; waiting till Tocksoose 
finished the last with a crooked knife they re-embarked 
and set forth down stream as the shadows of the hemlocks 
were crawling up the eastern bank. 
"Now, Lovel," said the sportsman, "I want to show you 
that I can handle a paddle too, so give it to me and you 
take my gun and see how it suits you." 
Sam was as happy with the beautiful gun in his hands 
as a lover with his sweetheart and fondled it with as 
much delight, sighting it on various inanimate objects 
and trying again and again the smooth elastic movement 
of the locks. An awkward splash of the paddle, that was 
for the most part fairly well handled, startled a duck to 
flight at long range, and Sam pottering a little over his 
aim made, a clean miss. At the report, one nearer, but 
dozing over his crop full of wild rice, floundered to flight 
through the rent bower of sedges. Sam covered him 
neatly, but his finger found the wrong trigger and there 
was only a hollow snap of the empty barrel. Yet he kept 
his wits enough to make a second trial and the big dusky 
drake came down with a downright splash that told of 
sudden and merciful death. 
"A good shot," was the sportsman's commendation as 
he turned the boat's prow into the weeds, but Sam was 
not very proud of it after a bad miss and a worse 
blunder. 
"The's a' most tew many trickers for my fingers," he 
said as he retrieved the dead bird with an oar. "The gun 
can't du it all, if it is an almighty good one. It wants the 
right man behind it." 
"It's got a very good one there," the gentleman said. 
"All the trouble with him is he has learned to shoot a rifle 
too well to cut loose without half taking sight, as we shot- 
gun fellows do." 
So few ducks had come in since the up stream passage 
of the hunters that it was scarcely worth while to be on 
the watch for them, and they both paddled leisurely down 
the channel, chatting as they went, while the one smoked 
his fragrant cigar, the ot' er his satisfying pipe. 
"How would you like the life of our red brethren back 
there?" the sportsman asked. 
"Wal, they don't appear tu be fretted much," said 
Sam. 
"No, they're contented; food enough for to-day and a 
few pipef uls of tobacco; rich with a hundred muskrat 
skins. Perhaps it's the happiest life a man can lead, qnd 
perhaps the happiest is the best." 
"Wal, no," Sam dissented. "It'll du well 'nough for a 
play spell naow an' ag'in; but it hain't jest the sort o' life 
for a stiddy business, leastways not for white men. O, 
I d' know, if a man hadn't nob'dy but himself and things 
hadn't gone jest right with him, but not if the's anyb'dy 
'at he cares for. I hev wished I was an Injin, but I 
don't naow. An' I've tried it tew, for a fortni't runnin', 
up t' other Slang. An' it beats all haow easy a man set- 
tles daown tu that way o' livin', an' I b'lieve a man's con- 
sid'able like a tame fox — oncte he gits loose he gits wild 
ag'in mighty easy. I feel it a-comin' on every time I git 
int' the woods, some sight or some smell 'at you can't 
sca'cely see ner smell a-wakin' up suthin' that's b'en asleep 
sence the Lord kno ws when. 'T wa'n't in my father, an' 
I do' know's it was in my gran'ther, only as he hed. tu 
hunt some for a livin'. 'T ain't no wonder 'at you can't 
tame an Injin so 't he'll stay tame, wi' a hunderd gener- 
ations o' wild blood a-r'arin' up in him wus 'n we c'n guess. 
An' 't ain't none tew easy for us tu quit livin' that way 
arter bein' in 't a spell. Why, it's jelluk leavin' the hum 
'at I was born in an' reared in tu clear aout from a camp 
'at I've stayed in a week, an' if I come acrost it arter - 
wards it makes me feel sort o' lunsome." He blushed 
through his sunburns and laughed a little bashfully at his 
confession of weakness, but the smile on his companion's 
face was sympathetic. 
"Yes, we've got a drop of the old wild blood in us," the 
latter said, "and for my part I'm thankful for it, and I 
don't take greatly to folks who haven't got it or are 
ashamed of it. Of course it won't do to let it get the 
better of us all the time, for there isn't much bread and 
butter in it, but it isn't best to smother it out. It's good 
sauce for the bread and butter." 
,c No, it won't du," Sam said with a sigh of resignation. 
"A man 'at don't du nothin' much but hunt an' fish an' 
trap is lierble tu be a pooty shif'less creetur'; clever an' 
good natured mebby, but tumble shif'less. Like's not 
I'd ha' be'n one of 'em myself if it hadn't ha' be'n f er 
hevin' a good woman, not tew sot, but reason'ble in goin' 
ag'n it. As a gin'al thing women folks 'pears tu be 
kinder onf avorable tu huntin' an' haoun' dawgs an' sech , 
an' I d' know but they was made so a puppus tu keep us 
kinder in baounds. Then ag'in the's women 'at it'B 
enough tu drive a man off int' the woods tu git red o' 
their everlastin' hetchelin'." 
His companion laughed and began to speak, but stopped 
with a sudden cautionary "Shh — there comes a flock of 
teal," as he bent low and turned the boat close behind a 
tall bunch of weeds. "Give me my gun," he whispered, 
and just as he got it in his hands the swift-winged little 
ducks came like a flash, following the channel as if it 
was a road, till at sight of the boat they swerved away 
and upward from it. The ready gun sprang as quickly 
to the shooter's shoulder, and as it touched it spat out its 
double roport and six dead and wounded birds tumbled 
out of the thinned ranks into marsh and channel in a 
rapid succession of splashes. 
When the game was picked up the hunters went on to 
the mouth of the Slang, where the boat was run into the 
tall weeds to await the evening incoming of the ducks. 
The flight was already begun, giving as frequent shots as 
a reasonable man could desire, and much more difficult 
for an unpracticed hand than when the birds were flushed 
from the marshes. 
From the moment when a flock first became visible, 
like a dark thread drifting up from the horizon of wooded 
shores beyond the Bay of the Vessels, then became a 
chain of motes, and the first faint sibilation of hurrying 
wings dawned on the hearing, till it grew loud and em- 
phatic, and every advancing form became a distinct bird, 
there was time enough for nerves to be steadied and gun 
to be ready, but not to find an easy marK in the strong- 
winged fowl, sweeping past with the impetus gained in 
two miles of flight with a favoring breeze. Not every 
one of the sportsman's shots brought down its bird, for 
now and then there was an unmistakable miss, and some- 
times when a chance was taken at long range the pellets 
could be heard pattering against the thick plumage, yet 
the stout bird swept on in uninterrupted flight. 
The shooter showed neither impatience when he made 
an ineffectual shot nor exultation when with more 
frequent occurrence the stricken bird came down in a 
curved slant and plunged through weeds and water to its 
last alighting. After a while he gave the gun to Sam, who 
profiting by instruction and experience made some shots 
good enough to afford consolation for the bad ones, and 
then they quit their ambuscade and paddled down to the 
landing under the billows. 
The last sunlight was on the eastern mountains and the 
sportsman made haste to depart on his homeward voyage, 
he and Sam parting with a mutual desire for further 
acquaintance and future days of sport together. 
"Say, Sam," Antoine whispered eagerly, bursting with 
news he could scarcely contain till the others were out of 
hearing, "you'll a'n't ast it, did you? You'll a'n't know 
who he was, a'n't it?" 
"No," said Sam, "I didn't ask him no questions." 
"Wal, seh, bah gosh, he was be de biggest l'yer dey was 
in Vairgenne. Dat feller tol' me." 
"Git, aout Antwine," said Sam, "he hain't no liar. He's 
abaout so nice a man as ever I see." 
"O, Sam, a'n't you on'stan' Angleesh? Ah'll a'n't say he 
lie, but he big l'yer. He goin' be judge, prob'ly gov'mer, 
mebby." Rowland E. Robinson. 
Florida Fishing. 
Hawks Park, Fla., Feb. 14.— We wish as Northern 
tourists to report the catch of fish in this part of Florida, 
and fur this week a party of four in less than one hour, 
while at Callalisa Creek on North Indian River, took 
with hand lines on the 14th forty-seven sheepshead, all 
of good size,average weight 3 to 41bs. each. There has been 
very good fishing of all kinds until the cool weather of 
the past few weeks, but now as the water is warmer the 
fishing is good again. Fifty-two whiting were taken by 
three yesterday at Mosquito Inlet near New Smyrna. Sea 
bass, trout and drum are taken daily and in good quan- 
tities. The above are not the best catches we have had 
this season, but are for the week past. There is plenty 
of good fishing on this river at present. 
H. P. KlTTEEDGE, DR. A. G. DlTRGUN, 
Fred R, Crane, J. Walter Bradlee. 
