December, 1922 
533 
saw-grass. Here, however, 
is a pair of pintail that are 
laying their course for the 
blind. Light and shadow — 
the pearly tint of winding 
water — are straightway for- 
gotten as I glue my eye to a 
hole in the blind and watch 
those oncoming sprig. 
There ! they are almost over; 
dropping, dropping, wings 
bowed, necks extended. My 
thumb makes sure that the 
safety is up — ‘ ‘Quack ! 
Quack ! Quack !” — from one 
of my trusty callers. Now ! 
Blam ! ! Blam ! ! and I’m 
watching two feathered 
streaks go by, sound and 
whole, but 'oh ! so pressed 
for time ! ; 
Guns are popping regu- ! 
larly at several points in the 
marsh. Ducks are being 
turned from one blind only 
to pass on and pitch to one 
of the others. 
I have shot an appaling 
number of shells but, all in 
all. I’m satisfied. Something 
tells me it’s time to quit. 
Counting the ducks that 
have dropped within sight, 
and figuring those that fell 
in the grass, I know I am 
close to the limit. I look at 
my watch and can scarcely 
believe it. It still wants 
some minutes to nine o’clock 
— and I’ve had a whole day’s 
shooting ! 
“Sam,” I ventured, as we 
pushed slowly back to the 
landing, “did I seem — er — to 
be getting them pretty 
well?” “Sure did. Boss. 
Reckon you’d kill a man 
ev’ytime ef you set you min’ 
dat way.” Which shows 
the trend of poor Sam’s 
thoughts at the end of our 
morning’s shooting. 
Kicking my heels on the Merry Bell 
porch, listening to the gunfire going on 
in the marsh below, I began to regret 
my own hasty work. Why the deuce 
hadn’t I prolonged my pleasure just a 
little? Plenty of ducks. I might have 
let some of them get by without a 
shower of lead. 
I walked around to where Sam was 
hanging my bag in the shade of the 
great oaks. Kimono was there also — I 
never could get closer than that to the 
name of my host’s Jap — and the two 
were holding a lively discussion as to 
the respective merits of this and that 
kind of duck. Kimono, I realized, was 
animated by a spirit of pure commer- 
cialism. He was fondling a bunch of 
five or six sprig. “Fine, fine duck!’* 
he kept repeating. “Nice duck; sell 
him lots money in Nu Lork— fifty — 
bundled dollars” — then a sad, deploring 
shake of the head. Sam was skeptical 
— “ ’Tain’t no duck wuth more’n a dollar 
’lessen it’s a goose. Me, I likes fat 
meat better’n wil’ fowl, anyways.” 
A bunch of pin-tails, their trim necks stretched out like racehorses, swept past the blind 
An hour later the other boys came in, 
their several bags equalling or exceed- 
ing my own, and if Kimono had been 
excited over my display, the sight of 
the string that was shortly hanging on 
the long game-rack might well have 
turned his head. Mallards, pintail, gad- 
wall, black-ducks, shovellers, blue and 
green-wing teal — they were all there, 
rating down in point of numbers as I 
have set them here. Right now I will 
say that Kimono on the one hand and 
ourselves on the other, did full justice 
to those ducks. Under his skillful 
touch they became juicy morsels of 
passing entrancement. Oh ! how good 
they were ! Teal, mallard, gadwall — it 
was impossible to choose between them 
once Kimono had exercised his magic 
art and spread them out before us. 
T REMEMBER a long paddle with 
1 Sam through winding streams where 
the cypress limbs arched over our heads. 
Dark aisles they were, through a waste 
of trackless saw-grass. Festoons of 
moss, gray and ghostly in the early 
morning light, hung from each gnarled 
and twisted bough. Now and then a 
great heron, aroused from his slumbers, 
rose ahead of us on noiseless wings and 
sailed away into the shadows. Scarcely 
a ripple disturbed the surface as Sam 
plied his silent paddle. Silhouetted 
against the gray water astern, that 
dense canopy spread above us and the 
banks showing black and eerie, I might 
almost have imagined old Sam some 
ghoulish boatman transporting me over 
the river Sty.x to a forest inferno be- 
yond. 
We were bound for no inferno, how- 
ever. “Salt Pond” lay at the end of our 
journey, and Salt Pond, from all re- 
ports, left nothing to be desired from a 
cluck shooter's point of view. Leaving 
the main stream — a small branch of the 
Cooper River — we entered a ditch so 
narrow and cluttered with, snags and 
sunken logs that we had difficulty in 
forcing a passage. A vista of broad 
{Continued on page 550) 
