Forest and Stream 
$3 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1913 
VOL. LXXXI. -No. 26. 
22 Thames St., New York. 
Webbed-Feet in the Wet 
By FRANK L. BAILEY 
(Second Morning) 
T HE morning of the second day was ushered 
in midst a gust of wind and rain. For 
three days the sky had been heavily over¬ 
cast, indicative of rain, still it had held off, con¬ 
tenting itself by dispensing a stiff northeasterly, 
fog-laden wind. We had lost one morning by 
staying at home, for fear of the elements; the 
next morning we braved them, and won out. So 
this morning, after the first flurry at daybreak, 
I took my Marlin “pump” from its leather case, 
crammed shells into a metal lunch-box, which, by 
the way, is very convenient when salt-water 
shooting, pulled on rubber boots and oilskin 
jacket, then started for the wharf. I was a little 
early, but soon Mayland showed up, encased all 
the way in oilskins. The rain had ceased by this 
time, and the wind had relaxed considerably. 
Everything stowed snugly in the boat, we 
cranked up the engine and were off. We had 
covered scarcely half the distance when the rain 
set in again, and by the time the shooting grounds 
were reached I felt like a sponge, in places. You 
see there was an unprotected intermission of 
pant-legs from the bottom of my oil-jacket to the 
tops of my rubber boots, and I’ll wager there 
wasn't any water that got by. 
It lacked an hour of low tide, and although 
the feeding grounds were plentifully covered, yet 
a number of coots and old squaws were flying 
about. We chose the location occupied on the 
morning before, and put out the decoys—one a 
string of eight coots, another of eight old squaws. 
It was still raining, and raining hard, but our 
ardor wasn’t dampened in the least. 
All at once we noticed that our old squaw 
decoys had started seaward. The strong out¬ 
running current of ebb tide was too much for the 
small stone we had anchored them by, so there 
was nothing to do but chase them. I suggested 
that we tie a buoy to our mooring, and cast off. 
This we did, and no sooner had it struck the 
water than down it went like a rock. The swift 
current had run it under, and there we were with¬ 
out a mooring. Things didn’t look so promising 
GULLS MOVING WIDGEON 
