488 
Forest and Stream 
ON LOUISIANA MARSHES 
SPORT AT PASS A LA OUTRE AMONG 
THE MALLARDS AND POULES D’EAU 
By BEVERLY G I DOINGS 
I STIRRED uneasily, openea my eyes 
and gazed heavy-lidded through the 
porthole. In the insufficient light of 
the few stars visible through the 
flying scud the marshland lay somber 
and black, and near at hand on the bay- 
ou’s sedgy bank the tall cane bowed be- 
neath a chill and rushing north wind. 
In the eastern sky not the faintest flush 
of the dawning showed and I turned 
again to my slumbers. 
“A la has !” 
In soft-voiced “Cajan” but insistent, 
notwithstanding, the cry invaded my 
dreams. I sat upright and caught 
through the glass the glow of an ap- 
proaching lantern. On the opposite bunk 
the skipper stirred. I heard him stumble 
through the darkness to the switch, and 
a second later the cabin was flooded 
with light. 
“Up !’’ he bellowed with astonishing 
joviality, considering the hour. “Up, 
you loafers; day will be on us before we 
get to the blinds.” 
His good nature shamed me into im- 
mediate action. I descended precipitately 
from my upper berth and landed heavily 
upon the languid Jacques, who occu- 
pied a spring cot directly beneath rne. 
Strangely enough he surveyed me quite 
without malice and after a moment’s 
cogitation swung a reluctant leg from 
beneath the blankets. Once up he laid 
relentless hands upon the skipper’s son- 
in-law, and before the “Cajan” guide 
shoved a wrinkled and whimsical coun- 
tenance above the railing we stood fully 
clothed and shivering upon the deck of 
the little cabin cruiser. 
“One man wit’ me,” the guide said 
succinctly. “T’ree men with Mar-tin. 
Narcisse he engag’ wit’ one sport from t’ 
club to-day.” 
The skipper nodded to me. ■ 
“Go ahead. Captain,” he said. “Good 
luck.” 
I stumbled after Joe along a narrow, 
marshy path to the banks of a wide 
bayou. A cypress pirogue, decoy laden, 
was drawn up beside a rude, two-plank 
landing. Knowing something of the 
idiosyncrasies of these graceful but un- 
stable craft, I placed myself with some 
exactness in the bow, bending low to 
avoid the full sweep of the biting wind. 
We pushed off, but made but indiffer- 
ent headway against the combination of 
current and head wind. Then, of a sud- 
den, the bayou narrowed. Tall cane 
fringed its windward bank, in the shelter 
of which we moved forward at a greatly 
accelerated pace, and now occasionally 
there was borne to us the lively gabble 
of feeding mallards. 
We swung at length into one of the 
bayou’s numerous affluents and from the 
gloom before us there came an uproar 
of threshing wings that arose mightily 
above the storm’s commotion. 
“Ducks !” I cried, unable to restrain 
myself. 
“Some duck, but poule d’eau (coots) 
most,” Joe tempered my elation. “But, 
man, plenty duck feeding here to-day in 
this crevasse. Der — ” he swung an arm 
to the south — “but one mile is the Gulf. 
Dis strong wind mak’ the wat-tair so 
rough out der’ that at dawn the duck 
remain here in this marsh. Dis is for 
duck one fine day.” 
Abruptly our progress ceased. Joe 
carefully placed his paddle inboard and 
grasping his pole stood erect. We were 
entering a small lagoon dotted here and 
there with islands of cane. Scarcely four 
inches of water covered the silt and our 
progress for the next twenty minutes 
was laborious and snail-like. We paused 
at length almost at the lagoon’s further 
shore, and with the aid of a flashlight 
set out our decoys near a clump of cane. 
This finished we pushed the pirogue deep 
into the reedy island and stretched out 
to await the dawn. 
D ay came, hesitant, indeterminate — 
a transition so gradual and pro- 
longed that we who watched were for 
a goodly time unaware of its arrival, 
for heavy clouds banked thickly in the 
east blanketed the light that precedes the 
sun. 
At length, however, after what seemed 
an age to my impatient soul, the gloom 
lightened. Joe stood alertly erect, duck 
call in hand, and I, too, after a moment 
arose. But to my eye the horizon was 
empty save for a thick smudge of smoke 
that marked a ship heading for the main 
pass of the Mississippi, so that it was 
with considerable surprise I heard his 
sudden sharp command ; “Stoop down ! 
Canvasback !” 
I dropped quickly to the seat and 
reached for my double gun. 
“Behin’ you !” Joe cried an instant 
later. “Now !” 
I arose. A drake canvasback was 
swinging across the decoys at aeroplane 
speed. I led him well and despite the 
high wind and indifferent light he 
dropped to the crack of the twelve- 
gauge. 
“That,” said Joe approvingly, “was 
ver’ good. Stoop down.” 
I stooped. A pair of mallards flew 
high over the blind, circled warily and 
dropped to the water just out of gun- 
shot. 
“More will come,” said Joe, noting 
my disappointment. “Dose are no mat- 
ter.” 
Then a peculiar incident took place. 
A tiny, solitary green-winged teal came 
winging his bulletlike way down wind, 
and before I had an opportunity to pull 
on him plumped down amongst the de- 
coys. I bent over to secure an empty 
cartridge case to throw at the impudent 
little fellow when I felt Joe’s grip on 
my arm. I gazed through the interstices 
of the cane. The two mallards which 
but a few moments ago had alighted just 
out of range were now on the wing and 
bearing down on the decoys. As they 
passed, perhap twenty feet high, the teal 
sprang to follow them, and for a breath 
all three were in line. I pulled the trig- 
ger. With an impudent “zoom” to his 
flight the teal continued his way, but the 
mallards came down in that satisfying 
end-over-end manner which denotes a 
well-placed charge. Well pleased, I 
turned to Joe and we exchanged amused 
grins. 
In the distant gloom my eyes with diffi- 
culty picked out a small flock which 
from its direction promised to pass di- 
rectly overhead. I motioned to Joe and 
he bent valiantly to the task of enticing 
its members from the heights. The 
