778 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Dec. 20, 1913. 
Christmas is Close at Hand 
And Christmas wishes and Christmas lists must 
be considered. 
One of the most useful, practical and appreciated 
gifts that you can possibly give to a man or boy 
(and many women, for that matter) is one of 
the Stevens Rifles or Shotguns. 
Stevens Arms are for sale at all dealers. 
Stevens Rifles are made for young boys—for 
full-grown men from the lightest and most 
And then there are the Shotguns, single barrel, 
double barrel and repeating—for all trap or field 
purposes for young or old—experts or novices. 
WiSH FOR A STEVENS FOR CHRISTMAS 
GIVE A STEVENS FOR CHRISTMAS 
Our big, profusely illustrated descriptive catalog 
tells you in detail about all the different Stevens 
Rifles, Shotguns, Pistols and Rifle Telescopes. 
It is a good book to have in your possession all 
the year 'round—at Christmas time it is espe¬ 
cially useful. 
J. STEVENS ARMS & TOOL COMPANY 
•s Sporting Firearms in the World 
CHICOPEE FALLS, MASS. 
326 MAIN STREET 
Old Squaw Shooting ’Round Plymouth Bay 
(First Morning) 
T was just about 6:55 A. M. when I climbed 
into Mayland’s motor boat; and found my 
long-legged friend and fellow-sinner; with 
one hand on the flywheel of the engine, waiting 
for me. We had planned to go the morning be¬ 
fore, but a thick, misty daybreak, backed up by a 
northeasterly wind, promised too strongly of rain, 
so we gave it up. Gave it up and got left; it 
turned out to be right after all. This time nothing 
short of a tornado would have kept us ashore, 
and that would have required a pretty stiff one. 
Our intentions were to anchor in the chan¬ 
nel leading to the feeding grounds. The tide 
accommodatingly receded to its lowest mark at 
7:30, and, as you know, the ducks are always 
looking for a breakfast about that time, especial¬ 
ly in December, when daylight comes rather late. 
At this period of the year, hundreds—yes, thou¬ 
sands of Old Squaws put in appearance for the 
purpose of wintering around Plymouth Bay. The 
place where we shoot is only, a small part of the 
bay, a mere dot, yet hundreds of the long-tailed 
fellows fly about continually, and the man that 
gets his decoys out when the tide serves around 
sunrise, is going to have as fine an hour of sport 
as he could wish for. 
One thing Mayland and I have decided; and 
that is, an Old Squaw and a “Quandy” are one 
and the same. We’ve argued the question with 
several gunners around here, and we’ve still got 
to be shown. 
A puff of smoke and a roar of black powder, 
proclaimed a thunderous warning that somebody 
was there ahead of us. Sure enough, there sat a 
man in a dory. He had two strings of Old 
Squaw decoys out ahead of him, and was stop¬ 
ping an occasional bird. We were thankful for 
his presence, for we were going farther on, and 
we could keep the birds flying between us. 
Arriving at our position, we put out a string 
of coot decoys, then thanks to the cloven-hoofed 
fiend, we snarled up the Old Squaw decoys into 
a helpless tangle, then drifted rapidly away with 
the strong out-running tide. And while Mayland 
fussed and fumed with the offending miscreants, 
1 sat sorrowfully and watched three white-wings 
and five Old Squaws swing over the other decoys, 
far out of range. 
To make things .more interesting, the engine 
didn't start the first time, and while my com¬ 
panion-in-misery squirted the Standard Oil juice 
at that piece of cast-iron contrariness, I saw a 
white-wing sail at the decoys. First he’d fly a 
few feet, then scale. He did this several times, 
with his eye square on them, then he dropped 
into them and began swimming around. Pretty 
soon he was enjoying the company of four Old 
Squaws. Friends, I won’t say anything here that 
Fll be sorry for, in fact I discovered that words 
weren’t of any use, still—“Oh, well!” Finally the 
engine went off with a report that was louder 
than any gun could make, and away went the 
birds. Draw the curtain—I’m all in. 
When we got the Old Squaw decoys properly 
placed, we were cross enough to shoot them full 
of holes, and s.o “worked up” that we missed the 
first bird. After awhile we got a grip on our¬ 
selves, and did better. Conditions couldn't have 
been more to our taste; tide, time and temper 
were all right now. When we fired into a bunch 
of birds, they (what remained), flew over to the 
other man—and when he fired into a bunch— 
same thing for us. So you see we had them 
either way. 
We were knocking singles and doubles, han¬ 
dily, and feeling in the best of spirits, when we 
discovered that the old fellow with the horns 
and mis-shapen foot was after us again. Oh, yes; 
he has his forked tail pointing our way, all right. 
He’d only relaxed for a new grip. It came in 
this interesting manner. I don’t know why the 
man in the dory wanted to come down where we 
were. I won’t even attempt to guess at anything 
so foolish, but down he came, towing his decoys 
behind us. He anchored about seventy-five yards 
from us, right plumb in range. He had hardly 
located, when I covered a bunch of Old Squaws, 
and had to let them go past without a gun. If I’d 
fired, I would have shot the whiskers off the old 
gent. I have learned since that the man was 
slightly deaf. Probably a good thing—our re¬ 
marks weren’t complimentary. 
After passing several shots for fear of com¬ 
mitting murder, we pulled up anchor and decoys, 
and went up into the berth that the man had 
vacated. We had lost considerable time fooling 
around one way and another, and the tide had 
gained quite noticeably, allowing the birds to get 
inside in shoal water, where they remained. Still, 
there was a little luck in store for us yet. 
The decoys over, amid many grunts and 
groans, we sat down with what patience we had 
left, to await developments. The first thing to 
develop was a visitor in the shape of an Old 
