Forest and Stream 
Six Months, $1 50. 
$3 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1913. 
VOL. LXXXI.-No. 16. 
1-27 Franklin St., New York. 
Another Talk by the Old-Timer 
T HE writer declared one day's duck shooting- 
in a glass blind was enough, but another 
of the four said: "Give me a chance; I 
can stand the pot shots if you can't,” so the sec¬ 
ond morning he, with a tender, went to it, and 
the writer selected a point half a mile to lee¬ 
ward, as the spot for a cane blind. 
He and Charlie, the factotum, hardly were 
there with a couple of loads of cane when all 
the others left their stands and headed in his 
direction. 
"Trouble’’ was the single word said to 
Charlie as they approached, and so it proved. 
The glass blind pair had the notice already men¬ 
tioned to ‘‘get up and get out inside of thirty- 
six hours" under penalty of becoming permanent 
denizens of the bottom of the lake. 
"What shall we do?” asked the politician, 
much alarmed. 
‘‘Yes, what shall we do?” chimed in the 
others. 
"I’ll tell you,” responded the writer. "We 
have thirty-six hours’ leeway; let us get our 
day’s shooting and talk the matter over to-night. 
So far as I am concerned, though, no measly 
gang of squatters is going to run me away from 
such shooting as is here. You boys can do as 
you please. I not only intend to stay, but am 
going to hunt up the fellow who wrote that 
notice besides.” 
All agreed this advice was reasonable, or 
at least the first part of it, and each returned 
to his position. 
It was a cloudy day, with a light breeze and 
rather favorable for the looking glass, but no 
ducks worked to it. Many came part way to 
the decoys, turned and swam back, and several 
low-flying bluebills, the easiest of birds to decoy, 
towered when within a hundred yards and went 
wide. 
As soon as he got settled in his newly built 
blind, the writer found why. It was strong to¬ 
bacco smoke. Nearly half a mile distant, an 
occasional whiff came to him sharp and pungent. 
Even one or two bunches of canvas, coming to 
his decoys, ran into it and changed their course. 
Using a pair of field glasses, a light cloud of 
smoke could be seen rising and drifting down 
wind from the glass blind. Word was sent the 
smoker and the reply came back: "Don’t believe 
smoke of a little good tobacco will hurt any¬ 
thing,” but it did. and after awhile he quit, but 
was too uneasy to get shooting. Kept bobbing 
.up and down and never a duck came near, so 
after awhile he moved, convinced the blind was 
a failure. 
At noon the writer led a high trump at the 
By EDWARD T. MARTIN 
locals who were aiming to make trouble. He 
crossed to the shanty where they were camped, 
found it looked .deserted, and tacked to its door 
the warning notice one of them supposedly had 
written, with the addition, “Fifty dollars reward 
for the man who wrote the above. Apply to 
shooter in new blind opposite,” signed with the 
writer’s name in full. 
"Say,” spoke Charlie, his eyes bulging, “that's 
like poking a stick into a hornet’s nest. Those 
fellows are bad men, and you are inviting- 
trouble.” 
"No, Charlie, not inviting trouble, but trying 
to avoid it,” he was answered, and so it proved. 
In the middle of the afternoon three boats 
shoved up from the shanty and headed for the 
cane blind. Their occupants were strangers and 
not prepossessing. 
"Are you the feller what wrote this?” asked 
one big, hairy-faced shooter, holding up the 
notice. 
"Part of it; the lower part,” he was told. 
“And what would you do if you found the 
feller? You might stir up something,” Hairy 
Face continued. 
“Well,” the writer said, inwardly shaking, 
but trying to appear cool, "a man who writes a 
thing like that and is afraid to sign his name is 
a coward. Now, I have just as good a right to 
shoot here as any of you and am going to. Re¬ 
member that. If there’s got to be a scrap over 
the matter, I'd rather have it with a dirty coward 
who is ashamed of his own name than with any¬ 
one else. If I find him. he and I will settle the 
thing for good.” 
“Hum,” said his whiskers, “ef I find him, 
maybe I’ll tell yer, only don't git too gay; no 
d d Yankee can come here and run things.” 
“Yankee yourself,” was shot back at him. 
“How long have you lived in Texas?” 
“How long?” He hesitated. "Why, ever 
since the war. Came here from Ohio in 1866." 
"That is what I thought,” the writer replied. 
“While you were catching mudcats in the Ohio 
River, afraid to shoulder a musket and go to 
the front, I was in a Northern prison, keeping 
company with a lot of brave Southerners who 
were captured fighting for a cause they believed 
just. Yankee, indeed!” 
Very sheepily the visitors withdrew. The 
bluff worked. For several weeks, beyond a stray 
rifle bullet which once in a while sang a little 
close, none of the happy four was bothered. Of 
course they stayed, for the adventure with Hairy 
Face gave them courage. It isn't at all likely 
they would have gone, in any event, for it is 
strange how often a shooter will risk his life 
for a few birds of no value except the sport of 
getting them—yet all will. 
The third night a roaring southeaster came 
up. It blew. It rained and the water raised 
several feet. No harm happened to the schooner, 
but the glass blind pulled up, the box drifted 
ashore, and the glass sides went to the bottom. 
Where, no one knew or cared, for the box with¬ 
out glass was a much better blind than with it. 
Sunk until only six inches were out of water, 
securely staked and fringed with drift from the 
celery, no duck ever shied from it, for all seen 
was a narrow weed-covered board such as was 
often found floating on the surface of bay or 
lake. Birds were apt to come too close, so near 
one could almost reach and pick them up. There 
was no excuse for missing, and the writer should 
have kept a record of straight kills. It would 
have been an almost unbelievable score, by side 
of which his fifty straight, made off from the 
Sixteenth street depot, in Oakland Bay, with a 
hundred people watching, would have faded into 
insignificance. Here, nearly all were single birds 
or flocks scattered as in act of lighting, wings 
set, feet down, speed slackened. If the gun was 
unsteady on one, take the next behind, or the 
next, or next. There were plenty. 
On several different days 250 shells w'ere 
used each day, with shooting as easy as poking 
your finger in your eye. Is it surprising then, 
good scores were possible? 
The blind was dry, too, for besides the celery 
packed around it, other weeds were washed 
against its sides ard stakes, which formed a 
perfect breakwater, so that in the hardest blow 
little or no water washed over. 
Things soon settled into a steady grind with 
no variation to the monotony. It was shoot, 
pick, pack and load shells from early morning 
until late at night. The same day after day. 
Charlie and Johnnie, the decoy boys and 
general assistants at everything, were tireless and 
constantly looking for something new. A bunch 
of canvasback, bedded in the middle of the lake, 
worried them because fresh ducks came to them 
instead of working to decoys, and plan after plan 
was discussed as to ways and means of making 
that lot of wise old veterans pay toll to the gun. 
At last, unknown to any but themselves, the 
boys hit upon a scheme. Somewhere they found 
an old barn door—a large one—seven feet or 
more long by over four wide. On this they 
nailed a dozen white back decoys, old soldiers 
from the repair shop, and back of them, another 
row of the same, breaking joints with the first 
lot. Crotches were set at each end to hold their 
guns clear of water, then the contrivance was 
