306 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Oct. 16, 1897. 
station to see the entire platform lined with ducks waiting 
for the train to bear them out of the State. He said that 
in warm weather it was no unusual thing to see two or 
three wagon loads of spoiled ducks hauled out into the 
country and dumped into a coulee. He seemed to take 
comfort in the hope of better things. Both he and War- 
den Bowers are assured of the wisdom of the non-resident 
act, whatever the non-resident himself may think about 
it. I think both the Chief and myself would be disposed 
now to say that if a shooter can in anywiy afford it, it 
would pay him better to pay his |25 in North Dakota, 
where he can get some shooting and where the birds are 
not being destroyed in such quantities for the markets, 
than to go to some more liberal but more illy-stocked 
State for a sporting trip. I know this license law has 
stopped much shooting and cut off much non-resident 
travel to North Dakota, for the gun stores of St. Paul and 
Minneapolis complain that it has hurt their trade with 
sportsmen who outfit for shooting trips to the Northwest. 
Even the railroads don't like the law, for it lessens their 
traffic. The ducks, however, are to be congratulated upon 
it, and so are those whose fate enables them to get a look 
in at one of the greatest remaining sporting grounds of 
America. 
Home of the Wildfowl. 
It was 11:45 in the morning when our long ride over the 
easy prairies came to a pause at the famous Chase Pass. 
Erom the high ridge which rims in this valley we looked 
down and saw two great lakes, each reaching away four or 
five miles from the point of view, each perhaps half a mile 
or more across. Between these two bodies of clear water 
there stretched a high ridge of hard, dry ground, appar- 
ently a quarter of a mile across from water to water, and 
about 40ft. above the surface of the water at the summit of 
the ridge. There was a light wind moving, and the water 
was rippled and moving, so that we could see no ducks at 
first. As we drove down nearer to the bank we caught 
sight of thousands of black, bobbing figures, all over the 
whole face of the waters. In shore, and now not over a 
few hundreds of yards from us, there rested upon the bars 
literally a black mass of ducks, thousands upon thousands. 
This is not the enthusiasm of a man who has never seen 
many birds before, but is the literal and calm truth. I 
never in my life have seen so great a body of wildfowl at 
one time. Soon the birds began to soar up and circle 
blackly about, and in time the air was dark with a count- 
less multitude of circling, twisting and turning fowl, each 
bunch with a different direction from the others. It was 
enough to drive one crazy. 
Neither Bowers nor Gokey showed anv signs of losing 
his mind, though I feared for the Chief. For my own part, 
I have a vague recollection that I stood upon one foot while 
the team was being turned out and the deliberate prepara- 
tions made for the hunt. 
"Take plenty of sheila." was about all the advice Warden 
Bowers had to offer. "You'll need them all, for you won't 
kill every shot." 
So we took each a back load and hurried off to the pass 
over which the birds were streaming. We had been told 
that on this pass, no matter what the weather, the ducks 
fly all day long. This we did not believe, but set down as 
"agi'n natur'." Yet we found it true this day at least, 
though the morning started in very fair and warm. 
We found that a series of pits had been dug along the 
ridge, a few feet below the summit, deep enough so that 
the shooter would be concealed when he crouched down. 
In these pits we saw many old shells, but these were 
weather-beaten, and showed to be those of last year. We 
were the first to shoot on this wonderful pass in the won- 
derful duck year of 1897. 
The Battle. 
Gokey took the furthest pit. Bowers next to him, then 
myself, then the Chief, who thus was furthest to the left 
as he faced to the west, from which direction the first 
flight came. We hurried under many passing flocks as 
we trotted into the firing line, and as soon as we got lo- 
cated each began to shoot. The ducks were most accom- 
modating, and came to us at first in a vast mass, out of which 
it was next to impossible to pick out any individual birds. 
The speed of the flight was terrific, and the hiss of the 
wings cutting low and close or whispering high overhead 
was never absent from the ear. Nor was there absent the 
steady cracking of the guns. Gokey's regular double re- 
port, mingled with the cornsheller activity of Bowers's re- 
peating Winchester smote my ear on the right, while 
nearby on the left the sharp crack of the Chiefs little 12- 
gauge sounded incessantly. Not one shot out of four 
landed its game, but, none the less, there was a series of 
heavy thumps all about us, more especially to the right of 
the firing line, where the two Dakota men were in action. 
After a while we had a little let up and I looked over to 
see how the Chief was getting along. I then had about a 
dozen ducks piled up in my pit, most of them belonging to 
Bowers, I presume, but when I approached the Chief he 
was sitting with his head in his hand, gloomily^ looking 
down at a hen spoonbill which he had chased into the 
grass and killed with a stick. 
Couldn't Land. 
"What's the matter, Chief?" I asked him, kindly and 
like a perfect gentleman. 
"The truth is," said he, sadly, as he looked up from the 
hen spoonbill, "I can't land on 'em. Now, I've been hold- 
ing for the solar plexus of about 4,000 individual ducks 
that have sashayed across here, but I can't seem to land 
on 'em. When Head they — don't misunderstand me — 
they duck, as it were. They ain't there. How about 
that? Are these things too good for everybody? How 
did you fellows happen to get any? Did you shoot into 
the flock, and hit another flock?" 
Duck: Delirium. 
_ I explained to the Chief that I got ducks by watching 
closely where Mr. Bowers was shooting, and then shooting 
into the same flock with him. He regretted that he was 
so far out of the way of this sort of assistance that he 
could not avail himself of anybody's skill but his own, and 
he hadn't any. (The Chief is good over decoys, but this 
was his first day on a redhot fast pass, and he met the 
customary difficulty in shooting before the birds were over 
on the next lake.) 
The Chief and I then concluded to visit a while, and 
we shot together out of his pit for a few rounds. By this 
time the bh'ds had begun to come back from the east, and 
now the fun grew yet inore' fast and furious. The flocks 
would start from the eastern lake high up in the air. 
"Mark east!" would come the warning down the line, and 
each man would get below the level of the ridge. As the 
birds approached the high ground they would drop 
rapidly, and come over the pass parallel with the ground 
and very low. They would roll over the top of the little 
ridge beyond us, dip down into the coulee across our 
front, disappear for a moment, and then come surging and 
boiling and whistling up in a long, swift, feathery wave 
over the crest of our breastworks, hissing almost into our 
faces as they swept on out toward the water. Never was 
such an exciting situation in the world! 
Never in all my life did I see such shooting. It was a 
glimpse, a glance, and then a swift wheel to get a fair 
shot at a disappearing bunch almost over the edge of the 
reeds which lined the water's edge behind us. Sometimes 
the ducks flew almost into our faces. Often we dodged 
down to escape what seemed an imminent danger of losing 
a hat or a head. Twice I shot ducks ahead of me which 
fell 30ft. behind me. Once I had a fat duck come crushing 
into the pit beside me, and once I dropped a teal against 
the bank of my pit. A more perfect embodiment of a hot 
comer on ducks never existed. It was almost bewilder- 
ing in its tension. It was a delirium of ducks. 
The Chief and I shot from his pit together, and after a 
time we both began to improve, coaching each other on 
the lead as the different flocks came by. I could see that 
he was stopping his gun when he fired, and holding about 
six feet ahead on birds where he should have led twenty. 
I could see the line of his smoke cut in apparently a dozen 
feet behind the bird which he thought he was leading al- 
most too much. He did an equal service by me, and soon 
we began to acquire the lead, a distance which seemed ut- 
terly absurd at first. The pile of birds at out pit began to 
grow. At lunch time the Chief had become a finished per- 
former on the pass. A very nice looking farmer lady came 
out with a very nice looking lunch, and as she drove up, the 
Chief and I rose and cut out four ducks from a passing 
flock, just to show the lady how it was done. Alas for me ! 
I fell down on my next chance, but the chief killed a pair 
out the next flight over. Then, as we gathered at the reed 
bed for luncheon, he cut down a high single, and a mo- 
ment later yet another. I saw a glance of triumph come 
into his eye. He had caught the knack of it. 
At lunch we paused now and then to kill, or try to kill, 
the ducks which continued to pour over. Mr. Bowers told 
me that he and some friends once killed fourteen ducks 
at that same spot, while they were eating lunch one day. 
I think we dropped half a dozen or so before we had 
cleaned up the lunch. A bountiful and well-cooked one it 
was, and to have it thus brought down warm from the 
farmhouse was the last touch of comfort on this dry, com- 
fortable, and absolutely ideal fly-way. A good part of our 
lunch was made up of four grouse, which we had picked 
up along the road; almost the only grouse we saw in this 
part of the country, where they are very scarce this year. 
Amenities on the Duck Pass. 
After our lunch we resumed position in the skirmish 
line, minus Gokey, who had a headache and did not shoot 
for a while. It was an old story with Gokey, and it did 
not take him long to kill the twenty-five bh-ds which make 
the limit per diem for a shooter in the State of North Da- 
kota. With the Chief and myself it was different. We 
got a good deal bigger run for our money than anybody 
else, because we shot worse. It now began to he a struggle 
of courtesy between us all. "I never touched that bird; 
it's yours, my friend," I would say to the Chief. "Your 
bird, sir," he would reply, with equal courtesy; and so we 
would argue over it. Bowers and I nearly scared the Chief 
to death: bv covertly piling up a lot of our birds in front of 
his pit, and then proceeding to coxint them before him. 
We made it out to be twentv-nine birds, and the warden 
told him it would cost him $400! 
It would seem that one should soon kill his limit on a 
flight like this, and so he can, even though he be new at 
the sport of pass shooting — the hardest shooting in the 
world, and not to be compared with the easy work of 
shooting over decovs. Yet I have noticed that even the 
best shots will spoil 100 shells to pick up twenty-five dunks 
on a pass like this, and it takes a little while to shoot 100 
shells, especially after the first flurry is over and one 
steadies down and behaves like a shooter, picking his shots 
and taking care. We had shot a little over a couple of 
hours before we thought it best to rectify our rough counts 
of individual bags and to go after the birds which bad 
fallen dead back of us in the reeds. Bowers and I went 
over the crest of the ridge to Idok for some birds we had 
killed on the hard ground, and while we were there we 
saw the prettiest bit of shooting done on the trip. 
The Chief was then alone in the nit over which the 
main flight was passing, and he had his eye on the birds. 
He took toll out of everything that crossed. Five times 
we saw him rise and fire at flocks and small bodies of 
birds, and each time he got meat. Once he killed all 
three of three ducks that went over down wind, high and 
fast— a handsome bit of work. Twice he dropped his 
double out, and out of five accepted chances he did not 
miss a shot. It was good enough fun to sit and watch 
this, and Bowers and I both concluded we had no more 
advice to offer him. When we got to his pit we found 
him radiant, and hugging to his bosom the light 12-gauge 
with which he was now thoroughly infatuated. He ex- 
pressed himself as for once absolutely satisfied with the 
world. "Did you see me deflate that last un?" he asked, 
cheerfully. 
When we picked up our birds we found that, counting 
a half-dozen birds we had given the farmer's wife, we 
had our limit, or so near it that we did not care to go 
closer— ninety-eight birds in all. Thereupon came up 
human nature, as the Chief and I both realized. It was 
the first day we had had outdoors with a gun for a long 
time, and the best chance to kill a lot of ducks either of us 
had ever had in ail his life. I confess that my personal 
wish was to kill some more. I wanted to try just one or 
two shots more. I wanted to see if I could kill a double 
out of the flock just heading for us. I wanted— well, I 
admit I wanted to go ahead and shoot a lot. But this 
we did not do, and after we saw the awful pile of 
game we had when we got it together, every one of us was 
mighty glad we had killed no more, even the question of 
the law aside. All of these birds, except those eaten by 
ourselves, were taken to Fargo and there disposed of, Mr. 
Bowers and myself laboring faithfully till we had them all 
given away. It is sure we killed enough. How many we 
could have killed had we all shot all day long as steadily 
as possible, I should not like to say. I believe we could 
easily have fired from 500 to 600 shells apiece, and 
have killed perhaps one-fourth or more of that number of 
birds apiece. But what a butchery that would have been, 
for even our one party. What a butchery it would be for 
many parties, taken ifbr not one day, but for many days, 
I never had the lesson of moderation more forcibly im- 
pressed upon me. It was not at first pleasant, I admit, 
and I vaguely found the customary excuses for doing wJiat 
I wanted to do, just as human nature always finds such ex- 
cuses; but once the temptation was overcome we each of 
us felt happy. We are each ready to say that the killing 
of twenty-five ducks on a red-hot pass is fun enough for 
one day for any man, and that the law is a good one and 
should stand and be respected. This limit is one which 
should be set in every gentlemen's shooting club all over 
the land. It is enough. It is at the moment hard to real- 
ize it, but it is enough. Stop at twenty-five, and you feel 
bad at the time, but good after a while. 
So we went away long before evening, while a cold 
storm was blowing up, and while over the greatest duck 
pass of the Northwest the long black streamers of the 
flight were growing thick and thicker. Into the night, 
over roads made softer by a drizzling rain, we drove, 
reaching town late, but very well contented. And so 
ended our day with Gokey, of Dawson, whom we voted a 
man in whom alike truth and skill abode. We left him with 
genuine regret, for we had sat at his board and eaten 
there of duck cooked as one finds it not from Dan to Beer- 
sheba, for Mrs. Gokey can cook as well as her versatile 
husband can shoot. When the Chief and I go out after our 
winters meat next year, it is more than likely that we 
shall endeavor to have that occur in the company of 
Gokey, of Dawson. And betimes a load is shifted from 
my mind. Many men in the course of a year w^'ite and 
ask me where they can find shooting. In human nature, 
this means not a little shooting, but a lot of a shooting. I 
can answer truthfully: Go to Gokey, ^of Dawson. There 
are no chickens there this year, and there may be very few 
next year, as indeed there may not then be so many 
ducks; but if the duck shooting then is one-half what we 
know it was this fall, it is absolutely certain that the visit- 
ing shooter will be more than satisiBed. 
It Protects. 
The main body of non-resident shooters will not be at 
Dawson until about Oct. 1, when the goose season begins. 
Then the special cars and the special parties will begiii to 
flock in, and Gokey will be busy all the time, as well as 
all the other guides. If you go thither, Gokey will take 
you out shooting. He will shave you, play to you or take 
your picture. He will try you if you break the law. He 
will put one-third of your $25 in his pocket, and don't you 
forget it; and if you kick will arrest you and try you be- 
fore himself, and levy on your stuff if you don't pay. 
Protection is beginning to protect out in the far North- 
west, but it does not by any means follow that the end of 
the world has come, or that all the fun and all the shoot- 
ing must come to an end. If you think that, look at the 
Dawson Reguter a week from now, or ask the opinion of 
Gokey, first citizen of North Dakota. 
I call Gokey thus deliberately. Warden Bowers is an 
old friend of mine, and a square man. He can throw 
Gokey in a fair wrestling match, as he proved many 
times on this trip. But can he shave Gokey, play to him, 
picture him or try him, all at once? I trow not. There 
is but one Gokey, and he lives at Dawson. E. Hough. 
1206 BoYCB Building. Chicago. 
REMINISCENCES OF AN OLD SPORTS- 
MAN.— I. 
Thebe is scarcely a sportsman who has shot any consider- 
able amount of game, who has not at least one curious shot 
to his credit, perhaps scorcR of them. For a great many 
years I have hunted our different varieties of game more or 
less every season, and have both made and witnessed many 
singular shots, and have been mixed up in not a few odd in- 
cidents. 
One of the first curious shots that I remember occurred 
many years ago. . My companion and I, with the help of a 
cur dog, were working out an alder run just at the foot of a 
steep, well-wooded side hill. We had gone but a short dis- 
tance when the dog flushed a rabbit, and at once gave chase 
up the run. When about lOOyds. above us, he put up a 
groyse that came down past us at lightning speed, hut as I 
always took all such chances, I threw the old gun well ahead 
and cut loose. The bird kept right on, and I was greatly 
surprised to hear my companion, who stood a few yards to 
one side, exclaim: "What a wonderful shot. That heats 
anything I ever saw." Just then I was still more surprised 
to hear a bird come -fluttering in its death struggle down the 
opposite bank. 
I at once grasped the situation, and knew that I had un- 
wittingly killed it on the ground; but my companion thought 
that 1 had actually stopped the thunderbolt, as it disappeared 
from his sight just as I fired ; and he was so loud in praise of 
my wonderful shooting that out of regard for his feelings I 
never said a word, and until now the true version of the af- 
fair has never been told. 
I was not at that time a very good shot, but I had an al- 
most overpowering ambition to become one, and in my al- 
most entire ignorance of the customary practice of sportsmen 
under such circumstances, I actually thought that the next 
best thing was to have the reputation of being one; and I as- 
sure you that in this respect, I gained vastly more by the 
fluke "than I did in the next two years by good shootiDg. 
After I became passably proficient in the art, I was made 
acquainted with a goodly number of the crack shots of the 
day; and it is perhaps needless to say that in asBOciatmg with 
them, I soon learned that a reputation on paper will not 
"cut ice" when you come to the scratch. 
In my youthful days I dearly loved to hunt rabbits, as our 
American hares are called. One long-legged fellow had es- 
caped us several times, always taking refuge in a hole under 
some rocks where we could not dig him out nor reach him 
with a stick. Finally we became quite interested and deter- 
mined to have him, so one day I took position within fan 
shooting distance and in plain sight of the hole, while my 
companion and the dog proceeded to hunt him up. I kept 
a good lookout, but somehow my eyes wandered for an in- 
stant, and when I again looked at the hole I caught a fleet- 
ing glimpse of our friend as he was disappearing in its 
mouth. I walked to the hole and was awaiting my coiQ- 
