518 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Oct. 25, 1913. 
One in a boat was plenty, for one could 
crouch almost out of of sight and could navi¬ 
gate, kneeling, with a short paddle in a very 
small boat which the weight of another man 
would sink. Yet the angle at which a gun 
could be fired without tipping over was very 
considerable, and few, if any, of the wrong kind 
of ducks, resulted. 
The writer, to get the wind at his back, in 
a part of the lake where ducks were always 
found close to shore, headed straight across. 
When less than half way, a large boat—one man 
rowing, another seated, with a gun across his 
lap—cut in front of him, then slackened speed 
and waited. The men were strangers, unques¬ 
tionably the Johnsons. 
It was useless trying to escape. No matter 
what one is up against, it is better to face the 
music than to dodge the issue; so the little skiff 
kept on its way, never increasing its speed, 
never varying from its course. 
When close to the other boat, the big fel¬ 
low with the gun covered the writer, saying as 
he did so, “You’ve got exactly sixty seconds 
to live. If you know any prayers say them in a 
hurry,” adding some language the Forest and 
Stream would refuse to print, even if the postal 
authorities would let it go through the mails. 
The writer looked at him. then at his gun, 
and you can believe it or not, the caliber of that 
piece of artillery seemed larger than that of 
any 15-inch cannon he ever saw during the 
Civil War. Was the man bluffing? There was 
a chance he might be. If so, the only thing 
to do was to bluff back, and trying to steady 
his voice and squeeze the shake out of it, the 
writer said: 
“Put that thing down before it goes off and 
kicks you overboard.” 
Who was most astonished, the man behind 
the gun at being talked to that way, or the man, 
who talked at the steady tone in which he spoke, 
would be hard to say. Be that as it may, 
Johnson raised the muzzle of his gun until it 
pointed skyward and said: 
“Well. I'll be hanged.” No not hanged, 
either, but something a little like it. 
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you were,” 
the writer replied, giving his paddle a twist 
which brought him inside the drop of the gun 
and rendered an effective shot nearly impossible. 
“Well,” said Johnson, after an instant of 
silence, followed by another explosion of vol¬ 
canic talk. “I like nerve and you sure have 
plenty.” Lucky he didn’t know the truth! “And 
we will let you go this time, but if we ever find 
you around this lake again, it’s good night. 
Will fill you as full of holes as is a ten-year-old 
decoy.” 
“All right, old sport,” the writer replied, 
still bluffing. “Got any money?” 
“Money! Money!” sputtered the bad man. 
“What difference does it make to you whether 
I’ve got money or not?” 
“Only this,” he was answered. “You’ll 
need every cent you can raise to pay a lawyer 
for saving your neck if you shoot me, and I can 
tell you how to double your capital.” 
“Let’s hear what it is,” chipped in the 
other Johnson. “No funny business now.” 
“It’s this way,” the Old-Timer answered, 
“I’ll bet you at evens all the money you can 
cover, that I am in the lake to-morrow before 
you are. There is Bud over yonder,”—and the 
sight of him was very welcome. “Let him be 
stake holder. Come, put up unless you are 
bluffing.” 
“Bud better look after his own affairs and 
not mix in with yours,” the oarsman growled 
as he took a stroke ahead. “Mind we’ve warned 
you, and the next time we’ll strike,” shouted 
back his brother, as the space between the 
boats increased. 
“Yes and it goes, too,” the other responded 
in chorus, bending to his oars so they were soon 
out of range. 
Whew! but it was a relief to see them go. 
If all men who seem brave are as badly 
scared as the writer was, then the world’s made 
up of cowards. 
Yet if lacking in courage, he was so mulish 
that next morning he was in his blind before 
sunrise carrying a Winchester rifle and a .44 
Colt’s navy revolver besides his shotgun. Bud 
was in the cane on one side, Clint on the other 
and the Captain and his heavy Springfield not 
far away. The others of the once Happy Four, 
by request, went after puddle ducks and jack- 
snipe. Lead flies a long way over water, 
glances, and its course is always uncertain. 
Soon after sunrise, Johnnie, the boy who 
was brave enough to kill an alligator with his 
pocket knife and yet had no relish for meeting 
these San Jacinto fire eaters, came over from 
the Amelia with word that the Johnsons, their 
catboat and all their belongings were gone. 
Bud said, “It is only a ruse; be careful. They’ll 
show up before night,” but they didn't, and for 
a week the party packed their heavy ordnance 
around. It got to be tiresome carrying so much 
old iron; a sameness that wasn't pleasant. Grad¬ 
ually each decided it was nonsense; the Johnsons 
were bluffers and had been scared cold, so one 
by one. each left his extra weapons behind. 
The writer, last of all, discarded his rifle and 
pistol, and that very morning lightning struck. 
He was shooting alone on the point of a cane 
island. Off to his left a flock of some fifty 
canvasbacks were circling. A note from the 
caller and they set their wings and headed for 
the decoys, then as he squatted low—just the 
instant he got down—came the ping! ping! of 
two rifle bullets passing a foot or so over him. 
His first thought was: “Torment those fellows! 
Spoiling such a shot for me.” Then came the 
idea of self-preservation, and still stooping low, 
he pushed the boat out of the blind, through 
a scattering stand of cane, into the heavy brake 
of the island. 
The Johnsons came closer, just out of buck 
shot range, and opened a bombardment. It 
didn’t last long. Bud and Clint heard the rifles 
crack and hurried to the rescue. The Captain 
came, Charlie came. It was a gathering of the 
clan, and the Johnsons organized no reception 
committee to greet them, but left hastily and 
without formal ceremony; in fact, the water 
boiled in wake of their boat as they hurried 
away. Going, they saw a young kid of a fellow, 
fifteen years or so old, who was gathering up 
dead ducks to take them to the schooner to 
be iced and they used him for an animated 
target. 
As the first bullet came, the boy yelled, 
jumped into the lake and swam for cover. A 
wounded blue-bill had nothing on him in matter 
of diving, a cripple mallard nothing wdten it 
came to hiding after he reached the weeds, and 
if he didn’t lose several years’ growth, appear¬ 
ances were deceitful. 
That unwarranted attack on the boy made 
even Bailey, who saw it from his shanty door, 
angry, and by the time the Johnsons reached 
their catboat, there was plenty of shooting go¬ 
ing on, and not at ducks, either. The wind was 
off shore. They cut their anchor rope, got a 
bit of the sail up and were soon out of range, 
headed toward the open gulf. 
This was the storm that cleared the air. 
A time of peace and quiet settled over the lake 
and remained until the season ended. 
An account of the trouble has been written, 
largely to show what men, otherwise sane, will 
go through for a little shooting, what chances 
they will take, what risks incur, if the fever is 
in their blood, and perhaps in this way it may 
interest the general reader. 
After the middle of February the weather 
was very warm—so warm it was necessary to 
gather the ducks killed three times daily, draw 
all puddle ducks and ice all canvas. These last 
spoiled very quickly. The celery seemed to 
ferment in their craws. The trade demanded 
they should be shipped undrawn, and it required 
constant care to save them. Each bird was 
wrapped in paraffine paper and covered with 
fine ice. At night when inspected and re-iced, 
perhaps ten per cent, would be found to have 
joined the Fenians and donned a uniform of 
green. In the early morning when overhauled 
and packed for shipment, as a rule, five per cent, 
more were thrown out. These were not a total 
loss, as many not badly spoiled were drawn, 
heavily iced and shipped as fourth class goods. 
Naturally with such warm weather many 
ducks worked north, and those remaining be¬ 
came so very wise they would hardly decoy at 
all. Little was left for the Happy Four to do 
except wait for a change of weather and watch 
the constant warfare between canvasbacks and 
mudhens for celery roots. It was amusing to 
look at them through strong glasses. A duck 
would dive and come up with a mouthful of 
celery only to have half a dozen waiting mud- 
hens, who are bad at diving, grab for it, then 
the Successful one would swim away at full 
speed, trying with great gulps to swallow his 
prize while a string of ducks and mudhens 
trailed behind, struggling to rob the robber and 
secure the sweet morsel for home consumption. 
“Why are not mudhens eaten? They feed 
on the same kind of food as the canvas. It looks 
as if they should be good.” This kind of talk 
was often heard on the schooner, and as ducks 
became scarce, a batch of mudhens was killed, 
skinned, to get rid of the rank fat, the young 
ones fried and the old, stewed. They proved 
very palatable, tasted something like prairie 
chicken crossed with duck and flavored with 
celery. It was unlucky for the local mudhens 
they were so tender and sweet, as from that 
time they had a regular place on the menu 
aboard the Amelia, and many a one was shot 
in consequence. 
It is what it feeds on anyway, that causes 
game to be good or bad. The writer has shot 
jacksnipe early in the spring, so strong from 
feeding on fish spawn, it was impossible to eat 
it then. How did they get it? Easily. A 
flooded prairie, from which the water receded, 
and left it very dry for fish, and just right for 
snipe. 
