May, 1920 
FOREST AND STREAM 
235 
A golden sea of sunlight floods the isles of the open woods There you may camp and loiter to your heart’s content 
Leave the hearths of civilization and 
answer the call of primitive wants. 
There is an age-old command to reckon 
with. The call comes yearly; it rings 
insistently on your senses when the 
snows melt and the balmy winds of the 
languorous South, whispering of palms 
and hinting of coral atolls, sweep softly 
over the land and waken the barren mead- 
ows. Still that tyrannous voice by wan- 
dering forth under the sky’s broad dome. 
Hie to the forests and the hills — with 
gun or fishing tackle or surveyor’s tran- 
sit or prospector’s pick, with butterfly 
net or kodak or geologist’s hammer, with 
sketching pencil or painter’s palette or 
scientist’s note-book — and become one 
with the broad out-of-doors. Get on 
speaking terms with the great Mother 
Nature who instructed the cave man, 
your hairy-thighed Paleolithic ancestor, 
and made him wise in the ways of the 
still-hunt and the red kill. Put your 
pack on your back, or in your canoe, or 
on your burro, and “break trail” for the 
timber beyond the fallow fields. Make 
peace with those gods of the woodland 
springtide, who await your eager coming 
and sincere oblations. Your appointment 
is long overdue; the rendezvous awaits. 
THE TRAGIC FATE OF BLACK JAKE 
HOW A FAMOUS LIVE DUCK DECOY QUACKED A WARNING OF IMPENDING 
DANGER AND SAVED THE LIVES OF TWO DUCK HUNTERS ON BARNEGAT BAY 
By WIDGEON 
I T was near the dinner hour. The 
shack was filleu wuh ihe odor of good 
things cooking. On the stove con- 
tentedly bubbled the pot of potatoes; the 
coffee pot was steaming nicely, while be- 
tween them was simmering one of 
Scouse’s incomparable duck pot pies. On 
the “Deacon Seat,” between the stove 
and dinner table, sat Hank, at peace 
with all the world. He and Scouse had 
enjoyed fair shooting that morning, and 
a goodly number of birds were hanging 
on the row of nails on the north side of 
the shack. His favorite pipe was draw- 
ing well, dinner was nearly ready, and 
like Robinson Crusoe, he was monarch 
of all he surveyed. From where he sat 
he had, through the north window, an un- 
obstructed view up the bay. From the 
west window he could watch the shoot- 
ing point, while from the open door- 
way he could see south down the thor- 
oughfare toward Mike’s Island. Through 
this doorway came the ring of Scouse’s 
busy axe at the woodpile, and the bright 
rays of the December sun, shining in on 
the array of tins on the wall behind the 
stove, made them glisten like silver. The 
waters of the beautiful Barnegat lay in 
their winter sleep, a frozen crystal. Far 
as the eye could see, the ice glittered 
like a mirror under the winter sun, with 
here and there a patch of darker color, 
marking an occasional air hole, while be- 
tween Stooling Point and West Point, at 
the channel stake, was quite an expanse 
of open water. As Hank sat looking up 
the bay, suddenly in the distance, he saw 
a tiny white speck that seemed to be 
moving swiftly before the brisk north- 
west wind. It grew steadily larger. 
Then he called through the doorway: 
“Scouse, here comes a feller in an ice 
boat, down past West Point. If he doesn’t 
look out he will run into that air hole.” 
As the boat came steadily on, Hank put 
one hand on the window ledge and slowly 
Live geese decoys 
came to a standing position. His eyes 
widened in horror at the impending 
catastrophe, and as the boat plunged into 
the air hole, his pipe fell with a crash to 
the floor. With a hoarse cry of “My 
God, he is in the hole,” he started for 
the door, but the boat crossed the water 
like a duck, climbed the ice on the other 
side, and was flying down the thorough- 
fare like a swallow, when he reached the 
open doorway. He had seen his first 
Scooter and the laugh was certainly 
on Hank. 
A FTER dinner was over and the dishes 
washed and put away, Hank took a 
generous measure of corn from the 
grain bag and stepped out on the plat- 
form in front of the door. “Here, ducky, 
ducky,” he called, and at once a great 
chorus of quacking arose from the decoy 
pen, and as he threw the corn over the 
wire fence, they were soon contentedly 
feeding. Hank took great pride in the 
decoys, almost all of them were named, 
and he talked to them as if they were 
human. Of the geese decoys his favor- 
ites were Dick, Buster, Lucy and the 
Wild Gander, but of the duck decoys 
none could compare with Black Jake, a 
hybrid mallard — black duck, with dusky 
body and beautiful dark green head. He 
was the apple of his master’s eye, the 
decoy par excellence. Scouse then brought 
a bucket of fresh water for the birds, and 
as he and his father watched the feedin~ 
fowl, Jake would flap his wings and 
