552 
Forest and Stream 
An ITHACA For 
Christmas 
WILL get any boy or girl, 
man or woman, out into 
woods and fields. They will 
be stronger and healthier and 
have fewer doctor’s bills. 
TELL us who the gun is 
and we will tell you what 
Ithaca Gun to order. 
Catalogue Free 
Double guns for 
game $37.50 up. 
Single barrel trap 
guns $75 up. 
ITHACA 
GUN CO. 
Ithaca, N. Y. 
Box 25 
IS YOUR GUN CLEAN? 
The greatest boon to modern 
riflemen and shotgun users is 
HOPPE’S NITRO POWDER 
SOLVENT No. 9 
It removes every trace of pow- 
der residue from your rifle or 
shotgun. Oil alone will never 
do this. Prevents pitting and 
fouling. You'll find it an aid 
to accuracy. Your sporting 
goods dealer can supply you. 
(Yoit Jcnow your gun is clean — 
if you use Hoppe’s NITRO 
POWDER SOLVENT No. 9) 
FRANK A. HOPPE, Inc. 
2314 Nolrh 8th Street PHILADELPHIA, PA. 
Indian Moccasins 
Both Lace or Slipper 
Made of Genuine Moose Hide 
Men’s Sizes, 6 to 11, at $4.75. 
Ladies’ or Boys’ 
Sizes, 2 to 6, at $3.75 
Sent prepaid on 
receipt of price. 
Money refunded if 
not satisfactory. 
We make the finest Buckskin Hunting 
Shirts in America. Carry in stock the largest 
assortment of Snow Shoes in the country. 
Also hand-made Genuine Buckskin and Horse- 
hide Gloves and Mittens. Our Wisconsin 
Cruising Shoes have no superior as a hunting 
shoe. Send for Free Catalog to-day. 
Metz & Scliloerb, oshtosh"wiJ: 
PAT. 
APPLIED 
rOR. ' 
HADE m 
WILBUR SHOTGUN PEEP SIGHT, 
deadly addition to the modern shotgun. Makes good 
shots of poor ones. Fast enough for snap shooting, 
ducks, or at traps. Automatically shows how to 
lead correctly — No more guess work. Made of blued 
steel, clamps rigidly on breech of gun barrels. 12, 
16, 20 28 gauges. Bouble guns only. Postpaid, $2.50 
including booklet. “Wing Shooting Made Easy." 
Booklet alone sent on receipt of ten cents. Teaches 
the art of wing shooting. 
WILBUR GUN SIGHT 
116 West 39th St.« P.O.Box 185, Times Square, New York 
opportunity to pick and choose my shots. 
A stiff breeze had sprung- up and the 
bulk of my ducks, coming in from the 
windward end of the pond, would sail 
past the decoys on the far side, swing 
into the wind again and come floating 
up to me on almost stationery wings. 
I don’t want to give the impression that 
I took only the easy shots. Now and 
then there would come a chance at 
ducks passing down wind and I am here 
to state that any duck with a thirty- 
mile v/ind behind him and the sight of 
a levelled gun to urge him onward, is 
far from an easy mark. I verily believe 
some of those ducks, killed dead in the 
air, sailed eighty yards before they 
struck the water. 
But mallards, mallards, mallards ! It 
passed my understanding to see only 
mallards, with just an occasional black- 
duck or two, when I knew the marsh 
was alive with ducks of other kind. 
I had learned my lesson on that first 
day in the old rice field. To shoot is 
only half the fun of shooting, and I 
found enough pleasure in just watching 
many of the ducks as they dropped in 
to my decoys or swept over on the 
wings of the gale. Oh, I shot at enough 
without doubt or debate; at times badly; 
again with a degree of success that 
made up, in part for the failures. 
TT blew harder and harder as the mom- 
* ing wore on. A heavy hank of cloud 
was rolling up from the eastward, prom- 
ising rain and plenty of it before we 
could pick up and start for home. I 
thought of Sam and the long stretch of 
water between us and Merry Bell. Get- 
ting in the decoys should be short work, 
so I fondly thought, and we would get 
under way, perhaps, before the heaviest 
of the rain. 
I have a notion that Sam, despite my 
near bombardment, had spent the morn- 
ing in uninterrupted slumber. At all 
events, I nearly shouted my lungs out 
before I raised him from the bank and 
a steady downpour had set it by the time 
he had hauled across and begun to take 
in the decoys. The wooden ducks were 
stowed aboard; one or two of the call- 
ers. Sam was speeding operations, 
grabbing a reluctant mallard, detaching 
its cord, pushing it into the coop. 
There was a flutter, a splash, and — 
“Dar ! Done bus’ her string an’ 
gone!” And she had. Ten feet from 
Sam’s outstretched hand, and fast in- 
creasing the distance, one of those mal- 
lard ducks was swiftly paddling toward 
the further end of the pond. “Lor’ ! 
how I gwine ketch her now?” I looked 
at Sam and earnestly yearned to tell 
him. What we did do was to chase that 
doggone duck for something like one 
hour ’round and ’round the pond. A 
dozen times we were near to having her 
cornered in a pocket of the marsh. 
Sam, armed with a forked stick, would 
creep up within reaching distance, then 
attempt with a sudden lunge to pin her 
down in the shoal water. Flip ! — she 
had dodged adroitly, leaving- Sam with 
a hoot full of muddy marsh and murder 
in his heart. 
Art and subterfuge alike failed of the 
desired result. We were by this time ' 
drenched to the skin, discouraged — 
desperate. Sam waded ashore. He was 
“gwine cut him a sure ’nough wilier” — i 
something in the nature of a flail, I 
gathered, with numerous branches that ' 
would spread over a whole flock of 
ducks. 
He had scarcely reached the line of 
willows when Miss Mallard edged 
gingerly up to the boat, cocked her eye 
at me hunched up in the after-end, and | 
with a hop and a flop tumbled over the j 
gunwale and settled comfortably down | 
by her coop. With the stealth of an 
Apache, I crawled forward and reach- i 
ing under the seat seized that pestiferous 
duck by the neck. 
Eureka ! “Sam,” I yelled, “I’ve got 
her ! Never mind your tree.” Only 
once on the long pull home did Sam 
make reference to our weary chase. ! 
“Sure did ac’ mean.” “Who?” I asked 
innocently. “Dat ol’ fool duck.” After 
that silence, and the steady dip of our 
paddles as we made for Merry Bell. 
There was a day at “Big Broughton.” 
where, reversing my experience at Salt 
Pond, sprig, teal, black-duck and gad- 
wall, as well as mallard, went to the 
making of my bag. A wonderful day 
when Chapman and I doubled up in one 
of the house field-blinds and took our 
toll of sprig. How they flew that morn- 
ing ! How clearly they stood out against 
the morning sky ! I see them yet — 
swerving down at sight of the decoys ; 
circling, breasting up, at length to meet 
our hail of lead. Did we miss an easy 
one? — turn about the next moment and 
pull a clean right and left out of the 
very clouds? 
Oh, well, in time we’d go over it all 
again, sitting before the Merry Bell fire 
in a delicious semi-doze. What better, 
indeed, can life offer than a duck- 
shooter’s happy dreams ! Dreaming, we 
shoot our ducks over and over; good 
days and bad; they come back to us out 
of the joyous past. 
THE BARNEGAT SNEAK 
BOX 
{Continued from page 545) 
same way. A fourteen-foot piece will 
make it. We note, however, that there 
isn’t much of anything to fasten the for- 
ward end to so we fasten in a piece on 
each side from the nose piece to Frame 
No. 5. To get the shape of the piece the 
rail half-breadths must be laid down on 
the floor and a cun-e run through them. 
Then make a pattern for the piece 1)4 
inches wide and cut it out of )4-iDch 
oak. It should be notched into the nose 
piece and frames and when beveled off 
will make good holding for the forward 
ends of the planks. The after ends all 
land on the transom. 
After the bottom is planked, we can 
finish up the centerboard casing and 
fasten in the mast step. Put the partner 
in and be sure the hole for the mast is 
round and right over the step. The di- 
agonal straps are to keep the hull from 
twisting- out of shape and are let into 
In writing to Advertisers mention Forest and Stream. It will identify you. 
