Q22 
(Oct. 15, 1964 
on the ground with their ends against the rock; across 
these we piled other logs, 
"The knotty forestock laid apart, 
And filled between with curious art," 
until we had a substantial structure containing enough 
Wood to build a farmhouse of modest proportions. 
With the hemlock boughs we covered the floor of the 
tent making a fine springy couch of generous thickness, 
and' with the head scientifically arranged at the proper 
height to enable you to lie in bed and watch the fire, hor 
that is one of the highest forms of bliss to which poor 
weak humanity attains. If you do not enjoy lying under 
a blanket and watching a fire through the opening of the 
tent flaps, it is either because you lack experience and are 
therefore ignorant, or because your nature is base and 
sordid. If the former is the reason, there is hope for you ; 
if the latter, there is none ; you are of the mud muddy. 
When the substantial part of the home building was 
completed, we made a sort of pretense of watching the 
runway for deer. But we both appreciated— though per- 
haps neither would have acknowledged it— that it was a 
mere pretense, and that it would have been a real disap- 
pointment to wound a buck and have to trail him far from 
our comfortable camp. So we both returned at about the 
same time, each pretending that he had come back to start 
supper in order that the other might be free to hunt 
The birch logs, though covered with snow, took kindly 
to the idea of fire, and when 
"By punctual eve the stars were lit," 
our log pile was crackling and sputtering in a most cheery 
and companionable fashion. 
Our supper was, in its materials and construction, one 
of extreme simplicity; it did not begin with caviar and 
end with creme de menthe ; but let those who think they 
can surpass it try— and fail. In a kettle whose size was 
nicely adj usted to the requirements of two competent ap- 
petites, we prepared a mixture of venison, pork, potatoes, 
and onions, justly proportioned so that each should give 
the essential part of its better nature to the creation of a 
noble result. This sacred vessel we placed between the 
ends of two logs in the fire-place, where the strong, clear, 
clean heat of hard wood coals would strike it, and begin 
that transmuting process in which the camp kettle of the 
forester is so much more successful than the alembic of 
the alchemist. With this savor rising from our plates, we 
sat by the fire and watched the shadows of the night stalk 
out from among the trees and silently invest our camp. 
And if you know of anything more beautiful than the on- 
coming of night in the woods, I wish you would share the 
knowledge with me, for I would go far to:see it. 
The bed proved all that a sleeper or a sleepless man 
could wish; and sleeping and lying awake were equally 
pleasant. The only trouble about sleeping was that it be- 
numbed one's faculties so that he lost something of that 
keen enjoyment of the lime and the place. I remember 
getting up about two o'clock to replenish the fire which 
had burned down to a glowing mass of coals whose rosy 
radiance was reflected cn the snowy tree-tops above the 
tent. The sky was of that dark, steely blue, like the color 
of a rifle barrel, and the stars gave just the kind of light 
which was most fitting. 
"As the white stars shine 
On the dark Norway pine." 
I stood by the fire for a while, enjoying the night, and 
then crept back into the tent, hoping not to disturb the 
counselor. But that matchless forest comrade was wide 
awake, and with full appreciation queried: 
"Isn't it great?" 
And it was. Horace Kent Tenney. 
Days with the WildfowL—H. 
"Well you are certainly a duck hunter from away 
back, Pop," remarked the boy as he reached over and 
lifted in one of the defunct baldpates. "There isn t 
one hunter in one thousand that would ever have se- 
cured that old hen. But aren't they foxy?" • 
"They are, indeed; much more so than the drakes. 
"How do you account for that?" 
"Simply because the mother birds, in the breeding 
season, have to depend much more on their wits and 
caution, in caring for their little ones. Whenever a 
wounded mallard dives, hurry and get as near the spot 
as you can. Then remain as still as death and keep 
your eyes open. Sometimes they get entangled among 
the submarine vegetation and drown and are never 
found, and I have heard old duckers say that they will 
purposely cling to the weeds and grasses under the 
water with their bills and deliberately commit suicide 
rather than come to the surface and fall into the hands 
of their dreaded foe. This they will do, it is said, when 
they can see you waiting near by the spot where they 
lie concealed. This, however, is a trick of the hen birds 
only. When I am looking for a bird that has dove in 
a place like this, I generally watch for bubbles or the 
tendrils of the under weeds and grasses that have been 
forced to the surface when the bird went down, just 
as I did with your bird. If you go threshing around in 
a boat or in your waders your success will be very 
problematical. Once off your bearings as to where the 
duck disappeared, and you might as well give up the 
hunt." . . , , . , , 
By this time we had retrieved the last of our dead 
birds and as dotted lines were seen in several directions 
along the distant horizon, we hurriedly pushed back 
into our blind and made ready for the sport I felt con- 
fident was coming ere many more moments had rolled 
^Hurrying back to our blind, Gerard and I arranged 
things as conveniently as possible, with my open shell- 
case on the center seat between us, and then kneeling 
down on the freshly rumpled hay. we patiently awaited 
the evening flight. . 
"I say, Dad," remarked Gerard, "did you ever see 
handsomer birds than these?" and he picked up a nice, 
plump mallard drake and tossed it over to me. 
"No, I can't say that I have, but they always look 
the same to me, especially on a day like this, with its 
sunshine and fresh, bracing air, and a genial shooting 
companion in a blind with me." 
"Ah, there! now, no nosegays, Pop," replied the boy 
and before I had an opportunity to continue he added: 
"Now I want to ask what kind of bird these are, local 
or fresh arrivals from the polar regions?" 
"What is your opinion?" 
"Well, from what you have told me about this matter 
to-day, I would judge that these mallards, anyway, are 
almost all northern birds." 
"You are correct, and I am pleased to see that you 
have made a practical application of the knowledge I 
have imparted to you. But look here" — and I selected 
an unusually fat hen from among the mallards — "here 
is a bird that has probably been here through the sum- 
mer, and as she is an old bird, has probably raised a 
brood here. This is a sure sign that she is a local bird," 
and with my finger and thumb I forced a dozen grains 
of corn or more out of her crop, up through the neck 
and out of her bill. "You see she has been off in one 
of the few small patches of corn to be found in this 
neighborhood and has gorged herself on the grain." 
"Yes, I can see, too, that she has a different look 
from the rest of the birds. She looks bulkier and her 
plumage is soiled and duller in color." 
"Good. Those are both infallible indications. When 
I am able to recognize the birds in the air, I can tell, 
almost to a certainty, the nature of the grounds where 
they feed without going to them." 
"How's that?" 
"Mallards, teal, widgeon, pintails and spoonbills in- 
variably use the shallow waters where they can reach 
the muddy bottom with their bills by tipping up on 
end, as you have seen tame ducks do in a roadside pond. 
They resort to deep water only for rest and to quench 
their thirst after their hunger has been satisfied. Can- 
vasbacks, redheads, bluebills and blackjacks work only 
on the deep waters, because they are divers and gather 
their food from the bottom of a lake from ten to thirty 
feet in depth. Of course, there are exceptional cases, 
in both instances, cases in which the non-divers will 
prosecute their search for food, floating seeds, mollusks, 
or the refuse left by the canva'sbacks and redheads, the 
stems of wild clery, bits of wapoto, umbellaria and such, 
and the divers to the shallows, when an abundance of 
their particular food, such as rice, nut grass and aquatic 
delicacies, is to be found there. But both prefer their 
natural grounds, the first named, low mucky ponds, and 
the latter the broad expanses of deep water, clear, rush- 
ing rivers or inland lakes. So you see, my boy, if you 
can identify the birds readily in flight you can tell 
where they are. bound for, and if you can line them cor- 
rectly you will have little trouble in finding great shoot- 
ing." 
"Well, Pop," interjected Gerard, "this is all mighty 
interesting, and I will always cherish this day's shoot 
with you— but look! look off there! isn't that a line of 
mallards for you!" 
Sure enough, a flock of perhaps sixty birds, had swept 
down from the hills and were sweeping across the lake 
diagonally from us, and while I didn't have much hope 
of attracting their attention, I seized my caller and 
sounded the quick shrill cry of the hen bird when sud- 
denly disturbed at the sudden arrival of a bunch of 
strange birds. 
The whole flock, which were flying on a line like a 
detachment of infantry, swept up into the air as the 
imitated notes of the female bird struck their acute 
hearing, and when at a sufficient altitude to insure safety 
from the long, glistening steel tubes of any hunters who 
might be lurking in the bordering rice or tules, they 
swerved around and came our way, evidently bent on 
learning the cause of the sudden outcry of their relative. 
Fatal curiosity. 
Once up in the air and turned our way, their sloe- 
like eyes quickly discovered our decoys bobbing and 
glistening in the open waters just off the tule-shrouded 
point where we crouched in breathless expectancy, and, 
taking them for a feeding flock, they came sliding down 
the air toward us. 
"Ready, Gerard?" I whispered, peering out through 
the interstices in the rushes at the swiftly advancing 
birds, and thrusting my gun out for quick action. 
"All ready !" echoed the boy, cautiously. 
Heralded by that mellow cackle, which invariably sig- 
nalized the descent of a flock of hungry mallards, the 
long line came swiftly on, growing rapidly larger as the 
line widened out; for the mallard, though seeming a 
slow flyer compared with the teal or redhead, is really 
a bird of swift flight. On they came, with that cackle 
increasing and becoming clearer, until it was hard to 
resist the impulse to rise up and peer over the tule 
tops. But neither of us did any such foolish thing, but 
we grasped our guns a little tighter, to be sure, and 
shifted a bit, to have them in the right position for 
speedy and certain work when the supreme moment 
should arrive. 
Alas, me! Tom and Scrib and Bill and Judge, how 
often have you and I crouched just so before; what 
tingling, thrilling moments we have known in the golden 
past, in our tule blind, at break of day or set of night, 
in those wild sandhills?" 
"Sh!" and Gerard's dove-colored corduroy cap pro- 
truded slightly, like a miniature sand dune, above the 
arrowy line of vegetation, and I, too, straightened up a 
little, then we lowered carefully again. 
And such had been my experience hundreds of times 
before. A lack of patience has many a time proved the 
undoing of the oldest and best skilled wildfowler, even 
when the birds seemed within easy killing distance, and 
when we saw the long line, with a confused cracking 
of swerving wings, and a querulous volley of squawks, 
swing off just enough to carry the nearest bird safely 
beyond all reach of the threatened danger, we realized 
that there are some things in duck shooting that always 
repay their cost, and the foremost of these is patience. 
No time for vain regrets or criminations, for where 
the yellow of the rice fields joins the blue of sky, an- 
other feathered cloud is rising into view. Along the 
sky the mass is widening out, and again coming straight 
for us. This time there is no use to resort to the call, 
which is too often done by inexperienced shooters, 
for the birds were on the course they had instinctively 
selected, and all we had to do was to lay low, and stay 
low, until the time to crack away arrived. No danger 
of another mistake on our part. We were as chagrined 
as we were disappointed, and even more so, but not a 
word of reproof did either of us utter. We were equally 
to blame, and silence was discretionary. 
So quickly did the birds come that I fancied shortly 
that I could hear the hiss of their pinions as they set 
them ready to slide down in to our decoys, with their 
green necks and white collars almost over us. But not yet, 
not yet. It is_ the critical time at which we lost be- 
fore, and the time when more shots are thrown away 
than at any other. If you show the top of your head 
or crook an elbow, you will probably see the line turn 
away just comfortably out of the reach of your gun— 
the hardest and longest killing gun in your set, of 
course. Wait one moment more, and you will hear the 
tips of their ashen wings fanning the golden air, and 
feel an intense tone in that loud quack of the leader that 
stirs a tumult in your blood. And seldom do you see 
such excitement condensed into so short a space as 
when you rise to see the air filled with dismayed and 
affrighted ducks. 
Gerard and I poked out our guns at exactly the proper 
time this time, and at the combined explosion five birds 
dropped dead or wounded among their wooden pro- 
totypes, while the rest created a very medley of wildly 
flapping and climbing dark-gray and blue-banded wings, 
with quacking throats outstretched toward all the points 
of the compass. 
By the grace of good luck, both the Kid and I got in 
an additional pair of shells before the consternated 
birds could get their bearings, and each got down an- 
other; in fact, I got down two, one, a hen with a badly 
shattered wing. She was curling back over the blind, 
and, when she fell, it was in the narrow strip of water 
between us and the decoys, and seeing that she was so 
hampered by the surrounding weeds and tules as to be 
unable to move any great distance, we concluded not to 
overshoot her, but let her be where she would assist 
in decoying other birds. 
"You don't think she can get away?" asked Gerard. 
"No," I replied. "You see she is right in a sort of 
a little weedy coop, and in her desperate condition, she'll 
be pretty apt to lie still, until she finally keels over dead. 
Anyway, should she attempt to get away, either of us 
can get her before she can make a yard." 
At this juncture the hen lifted up her uninjured wing 
and flapping it spasmodically, she began to quack softly 
to a bunch of birds hurrying across, far above us, to- 
word Hackberry. They failed to respond, and whirl- 
ing round and round in her narrow confines, she began 
to signal at every bird she saw, even calling vigorously 
to a passing flock of "chucking" blackbirds. Presently, 
a pair of her own kind came down to her entreaties and 
we killed them both, and finally the evening flight hav- 
ing set in in earnest, they came in to her beseeching cries 
so fast that the youth and I had our hands full. Once, 
just as the sun was blinking at the rim of the western 
sandhills and a dreamy purplish light began to mantle 
the distant plain, she scrambled about madly, and 
squawked shrilly, until seemingly exhausted, she flat- 
tened herself- out on the water, and lay as dead, ap- 
parently, as any of her ill-fated relatives about her. 
"What is the matter with her?" inquired Gerard. 
"She has doubtless seen a hawk," I answered, and 
then, true enough, both at once, we caught sight of a 
red-tailed hawk coming straight down the other side of 
the channel, just skimming the tule tops. We stooped 
down behind the covert of the reeds, and watched the 
marsh harrier a's it came straight on, across the open 
water and straight for the spot where we crouched. 
Gerard shot it as it dipped closer and it fell so 
close to the wounded hen that she actually tore through 
the smart^weed barriers, and was flapping away des- 
perately with her one good wing, when I keeled her 
over. 
Instantaneously almost with the fall of the red-tail, a 
flock of bluewings whirled over our heads, but they 
were going with the wind, and try as hard as I might 
to lead them, I couldn't do it, and the shot from both 
barrels whistled harmlessly behind them. Then, an- 
other flock of mallards dipped down behind the rushes 
to the west of us, and knowing that they had not 
settled in the water, I gave a running call and was an- 
swered by a laconic quack. I called again, and a splash, 
followed by another and another, told us that the birds 
had lighted just round the point within easy gun shot 
had there been no intervening tules. As Gerard and I 
arose and peered intently toward the spot, as if we 
would penetrate the rushy labyrinth, four redheads 
came whizzing over the decoys. Two quick reports 
were followed by two splashes, for each of us killed 
our bird, but the mallards flushing with raucous cries 
from around the point, distracted our attention suf- 
ficiently to cause us both to miss with our second 
barrels. 
Way down the lake the birds were weaving a verit- 
able net-work in the air, but for some reason or other, 
only fragments of the flight had thus far found its 
way up in our direction. 
"If we were down there," remarked the boy, with 
evident disgust, "the birds would be up here." 
"Sure," I rejoined, "that is the way it always looks 
when you are duck shooting. And it is not chance 
either. We've been popping away here pretty regularly 
all day and there are a whole lot of the birds that know 
we are here." 
"Yes, and when strangers come in I actually believe 
they warn them." 
"That may be, but — mark! off there to your right, a 
lone bird. You kill it." 
It was a cock pintail and he was high in the air, re- 
connoitering. He lowered, then rose again, just skirt- 
ing our line of decoys out of range; but in answer to 
a soft, trilling whistle, the spike stretched his long sinu- 
ous neck, cocked his head and poised himself on flut- 
tering wing, as if debating whether to come closer or 
retreat. He chose the latter course, but too late, for, 
as he slanted his white sides toward our hiding place, 
Gerard cracked away at him, and to our surprise the 
long neck wilted, and with folded wings the bird came 
down like a chunk of lead. 
: "A good long shot!" I exclaimed, as the pintail hit the 
water. 
