Nov. 8, 1913. 
FOREST AND STREAM 
603 
THE 
^PARKER 
GUN 
We make it reliable. 
Its friends have made it famous. 
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N. Y. Salesrooms: 32 Warren St. 
A. W. duBray, Res. Agt. Box 102, San Francisco, Cal. 
Send for our 
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Nine 
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“The Gun that Blocks the Sears 
See how the Safety-bar (No. 4) when 
pushed back over the L-shaped ends of the Sears (No. 5) completely blocks them, making 
accidental discharge absolutely impossible. . Every Davis Hammerless Gun has the Safety 
that “Blocks the Sears”. It is a Safe “Safety”. 
N. R. DAVIS (EL SONS, ASSONET, MASS., U. S. A. 
TALK OF AN OLD-TIMER. 
Continued from page 588. 
boat, and I kept the creak of the runners on the 
ice close in my ears. I did not know where we 
were going, but I pushed steadily ahead for, it 
seemed, half an hour. Then suddenly Cap’n Lige 
called something to me, and his scooter came out 
of the darkness close at hand. Lie had stopped 
shoving. 
“There she be, right ahead,” he announced. 
I peered in the direction he indicated, but 
could see nothing. 
“Where?” I heard Quinker ask. 
“Under your nose,” answered the old man. 
“Ten feet ahead the bow; don’t you see it— 
the open water? We're on the edge of the beach 
channel where the water’s too deep to freeze yet. 
This here channel ’s about the only thing open 
in the bay to-day, an’ we ought to kill a pile o’ 
burds on it.” 
Another look and I could see a slight change 
in the surface of ice beyond, and then I saw 
that it was not a surface of ice, but a span of 
water, for a faint westerly breeze ruffled it 
momentarily. 
“Now,” said Cap’n Lige, “this here Quink 
an’ me’ll set the stool, an’ you can git into that 
suit o’ white overalls, an’ white hat you’ll find 
under the deckin’ o’ your boat for’ard. You got 
to wear white clothes gunnin’ off’n the ice.” 
I found the clothes and donned them, while 
Cap’n Lige and Quinker flopped their scooter 
off the ice into the water and rowed about, set¬ 
ting a dozen or more decoys. 
When they were through the captain sunk 
the boat hook part of his ice pole into the ice 
and hauled the scooter out of the water with 
it. We pushed our craft close together and I 
found that both the old man and Quinker had 
already donned their white suits. 
“We jest got to wait for daylight now, an’ 
then you boys ’ll git some gunnin,” whispered 
Cap’n Lige. 
That daylight came slowly, as winter day¬ 
light does, and long before it had arrived, 
Quinker and I, crouching in the scooters, drawn 
close together like a hummock of ice with the 
old captain lying at Quink’s side in the larger 
of the two, heard the winnow of unseen wings 
constantly passing and repassing along the edge 
of the ice. 
“This scooter gunnin’ ’is the best a goin’,” 
whispered Cap’n Lige, “but it’s dangerous if you 
ain’t careful. I see many a man lose his life 
on the ice in ’em. My brother Walter blow r ed 
a hole into his boat out here on this channel 
seven year ago. 
“There was a mile o’ open water between 
him ’n shore, an’ come night he decided he'd 
try an’ git across it for fear his family ’d be 
scared. He stuffed up the hole he’d blowed 
with his hat an’ started. They picked him up 
froze to death three days later. 
“Jim Murdoch got ketched in floe ice what 
stove him in two year ago an’ drowned. An’ 
there’s been twenty men anyhow what’s gone 
under scooterin’ the last ten year. 
“But, say, son, it’s the greatest gunnin’ in 
the world, an’ it’s worth the chance—b’guy, here 
come the day! Git ready.” 
To go into details of that morning would 
be merely repeating what every man who has 
scooter-gunned has experienced at some time in 
his life. Suffice it to say that it was a day that 
ranked with the best. With the sun a breeze 
sprung up, and until noon broadbill and black- 
ducks, trading up and down the edge of the ice 
looking for shallow water to feed, dropped into 
our decoys, and we struggled to keep them there. 
Cap’n Lige was kept busy shoving off in one 
scooter to pick up our kills. When noon came 
we had close to the limit, and—enough. 
* * * * * * * 
“Better be a goin’,” said Cap’n Lige; "Porgy 
’ll be a waitin’ dinner, an’ she don’t like to be 
dis’p’inted. Cod was out a diggin' a mess o’ 
soft clams yesterday, an’ Porgy she’s stirred up 
a stew for you boys. We’ll have some'n these 
blackduck day after to-morrow.” 
But those blackducks and day after to-mor¬ 
row never came for us—that trip. 
The ice broke up next day and we ran across 
in our sloop. But we’re going back. Yes, you 
can bet on that. When? Well, it's hard to tell. 
But—some time! And when that time comes 
for us, or for you, or for any living person, there 
will be a hawk-faced old man waiting, who will 
say, as he draws you within his five-ply kitchen, 
“Dummy, dum, dum, dum, damn. Be you run 
ashore, boys ?” 
There are fifty-five oaks in the United 
States, about evenly divided between the East 
and the West. The Eastern species and par¬ 
ticularly white oaks are the most valuable. 
It is claimed that some of the eucalypts of 
Australia are taller than the California redwoods 
hitherto considered the highest trees in the world. 
“Is it?” was the sleepy rejoinder. And sev¬ 
eral times before morning she awoke him by 
saying what she thought of hotel people who 
used wet sheets for their beds. At daylight 
she ascertained the truth. 
She said: “There has been a lump under 
me all night and I am going to see what else 
they use in their beds besides undried linen.” 
She saw, and then talked forcibly about 
crazy duck shooters collectively and of one in 
particular. It was many years before she for¬ 
got to mention it occasionally, generally in 
company; in fact, it is doubtful if it is forgotten 
yet, but the garments were nicely dried. 
Starting out on the final Texas trip, a dealer 
who contracted with the happy four for their 
ducks, said, “Send me a couple of barrels of 
canvasback that are good enough to ship to 
England and I will pay double price.” 
“If weather conditions are favorable you 
will get them,” he was told; but before a month 
conditions were far from favorable. 
It was so warm every barrel of game needed 
heavy icing, and although the good birds such 
as canvas, mallards and what few redheads we 
got, were wrapped in oiled paper, when un¬ 
packed they were dripping wet; this spoiled 
their looks and didn’t help their sale-—neither 
did they keep so well when re-iced. 
At last it turned cold and plenty of new 
ducks came in, so it was no trouble getting the 
