818 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Dec. 27, 1913. 
ing beneath those timbers, and I cast with little 
faith, though my hand trembled with something 
besides excitement. 
Unbelievable as it seems, my offering was 
again taken promptly, a good fish, too, I could 
tell ‘by the feel. Feeling was as far as it went, 
for the old fellow succeeded in worming under 
a timber in which he left me fast and solid. 
Another hook was ruthlessly sacrificed. What 
did hecks matter, even though they were the best 
hand-made affairs? For a few moments Fate 
frowned, and I lost three more good fish in 
almost as many moments. But I must not pro¬ 
long this yarn. 
Ten good, very good, fish reposed in my 
creel when seven o’clock arrived. I heard it tolled 
by a near-by farm bell, and with the hour the 
miller arrived. (I shall always think he had 
been watching me.) I responded to his question 
concerning luck, by displaying my catch, which 
T HE writer in a long and varied experience 
has found no better class from which to 
choose a companion when arranging a trip 
to the wilds than from the clergy, the Reverend 
Fathers of the Cloth. Be it on the deer trail, 
on the duck marsh or with rod and reel, it has 
been the same; he has always found his clerical 
friends much to the good and human like the 
rest of us. Perhaps they have had more success 
with rod than with gun, but that is to be ex¬ 
pected. Were not the first of their kind just 
plain fisher folk ? 
Many pleasant memories center around fre¬ 
quent short trips taken with three clergymen 
whom we will term the Dean, the Canon and the 
Rector. Only the last two figure in this story; 
but the kind old dean is at least worthy of men¬ 
tion. 
The writer's home was near a large city and, 
which was more important, within walking dis¬ 
tance of a snipe marsh and near enough a long, 
weedy duck slough to reach it with horse and 
buggy in half an hour or so. 
Frequently one or more of the clergymen 
would send a telegram, “Coming,” and then be 
out, usually on the afternoon train of a Monday 
in time for an hour with Jack Longbill, a game 
dinner, a social evening, and a Tuesday after 
ducks. 
It was one Monday toward the tail of the 
season. Sunday night there had been a freeze, 
ice showed in many places and no more clerical 
visitors were looked for until spring, when about 
ten o’clock a telegram was brought, “Coming,” 
signed Canon and Rector. 
“Oh, dear, and I haven’t a thing in the house 
to eat,” sighed the better half. 
“Never mind,” the writer told her. “It won’t 
take long for you to cook something and while 
you’re doing it, I’ll go and kill a few ducks to 
help out.” 
Before noon I was at the boathouse and 
soon after, in a little skiff on my way to a small 
mallard pond, half a mile back in the high cane, 
a place difficult of access and known to 'but few, 
where once a week fifty ducks or more could be 
killed. This was the place from which the birds 
for my visitor’s dinner were coming from, but 
alas and alack! I could not get to it. The cane 
was full of ice which when broken was sharp as 
a knife. The boat was not zinc sheathed, and 
■would be cut through almost at once. Walking 
was impossible owing to frequent bog holes so 
deep a man would sink and keep sinking until 
it made no difference if he went through to China 
or stopped part way; so the pond was out of the 
I thought he beheld with something akin to 
chagrin. Even as he stood gnawing his grisly 
mustache I coaxed another good one from be¬ 
neath a distant timber, fought him in a space 
not two feet wide, and laid him gently down at 
the feet of the disgruntled miller. With a 
muttered something or other, he turned on his 
heel and left. I looked after him with astonish¬ 
ment, and as a relief to my feelings remarked 
to the latest capture, “Wouldn't that jar you!” 
Suddenly pandemonium broke loose. The 
water began to boil and seethe. The timbers to 
shake, as though in the throes of an earthquake. 
Suddenly I understood. That envious miller had 
started the wheel. Hastily I climbed out from 
beneath the old mill. Fishing was off. Was I 
trespassing on that man’s preserve, I wonder? 
Anyway I had eleven fine trout. 
question, although ducks could be seen hovering 
over it and many game dinners no doubt were 
there waiting for the harvester to come and 
gather them in. 
A “jayhawk” up the mile-long slough was 
the only chance. Not much of a prospect, though, 
for its edges where ducks naturally sit were icy 
and the single hope was a lone mallard sunning 
himself on a rat house, or possibly a bunch of 
bluebill feeding where they could be sneaked. 
Kneeling, with gun in front, so with a single 
motion it could be picked up and the short paddle 
dropped, the boat was kept close to the ice and 
it moved as lightly and silently as a birch bark 
canoe. It went so quietly as to nearly run over 
a crippled mud hen sleeping on a bunch of frozen 
grass. Not a duck jumped; the bluebill even 
were absent from their expected place. The 
slough ended in a pond which was perhaps a 
gunshot wide. That, too, was “jayhawked” and 
at its very end up flew three greenhead mallards, 
quacking loud cries of alarm. 
The writer tried to cross two for the first 
barrel and they got well over the cane and almost 
out of range before he shot, then he was lucky 
to kill right and left. The remaining duck was 
called back and made to circle twice just out of 
range before he decided to move on and find a 
safe refuge elsewhere. Now the thing was to 
get the two dead ones and effort was made to 
force the boat into the cane. No use; both 
weeds and mud were stiffened and almost frozen, 
besides what ice there was cut so badly it was 
necessary to give up trying to reach the birds 
with the boat, but my hungry visitors must have 
duck for dinner and the only way was to wade 
and find those mallards. Wading wasn’t so bad, 
only the mud and water were over my long boots, 
and to wade meant to undress. 
Vowing a thing like that shouldn’t make my 
clerical friends go hungry, I removed my clothes, 
or at least the lower part of them, and with ice 
scraping my bare skin, started into the cane. 
My feet soon got very numb and when I came 
to a burning where fire had cut the cane down 
and left a lot of pointed stubble three or four 
inches high, I kept going without noticing how 
sharp the points were. Had I known, it would 
have made little difference. The “meat” was 
wanted and all the burned cane in creation wasn’t 
going to stop me. 
Well, I got the ducks, then waddled and 
waded to the boat, and for the first time knew 
my feet were raw and bleeding where the cane 
had cut them, and cut them badly, too, almost 
to the bone in places. Tearing up a handkerchief 
and using the strips for bandages, then drawing 
my heavy knit socks and rubber boots over them, 
I wasn’t so very lame, and poled down the slough 
a-flying, so fast the stern of the boat almost ran 
under. 
I just beat the guests to the house. They 
came while I was trying to find arnica and cot¬ 
ton, and were entertained by my good wife until, 
limping badly, I was ready to lead them to the 
snipe marsh. 
It was too late in the day for any of the 
few birds remaining to let a shooter come near. 
The writer didn’t try—just sent his friends in, 
told them to work down wind, and then sat on an 
old box watching their efforts. Both tried hard; 
not a snipe jumped far or near that wasn’t shot 
at. They had a heap of fun and so did the birds, 
and neither hurt the feelings of the other. 
Weather moderated over night and it was 
a drizzling rain that greeted the visitors when 
called to breakfast long before daylight. The 
reverend gentlemen looked gloomily at the fine 
drops of water splashing against the dining room 
windows, but showed no desire to quit. 
“A little water won’t hurt us,” the rector 
remarked. 
“No,” responded the canon, then speaking to 
the writer, “Umbrellas not allowable, are they?” 
“Hardly,” I answered, adding, “but I once 
saw a city shooter using one.” 
“How? Where?” they asked. 
“It was this way,” I replied. “The thing 
happened at Calumet Lake outlet, a favorite re¬ 
sort of the don’t-know-hows. Early one Novem¬ 
ber morning, with wind blowing and mingled 
rain and sleet falling plentifully, I ran into a 
clump of rushes to watch the flight and locate 
for the day’s shooting. While there a bunch of 
sprig came over high in the air and I got a shot 
through the long neck of one. He fell with a 
crash, striking something a hundred yards to 
windward, that to my sleet-dimmed eyes seemed 
a muskrat house. Instead, it was an umbrella- 
covered man, who rose to his feet shouting and 
waving a wreck of broken steel and silk. He 
screamed so as to be heard above both wind 
and rain: 
“ ‘Say! Don’t yer know yer’ve spoiled my 
umbrella?’ 
“I pushed over, intending to apologize and 
perhaps pay for his damaged property, but he 
was sullen and sore, shaking his head when 
spoken to. Finally he blurted out: 
“ ‘I paid three dollars for that umbrella, an’ 
I’ve a thundering good mind to make yer pay 
fer it. Yes, sir, if I did right. I’d keep yer duck.’” 
“He was told to ‘keep it and welcome,’ ‘and 
these also,’ I added, as two tumbled from a 
flock of redhead which came close before we saw 
them.” 
“ ‘Say, that’s fine,’ he shouted in glee. ‘Have 
a drink?’ holding up a half empty whiskey bot¬ 
tle ; and then got disgruntled again when I re¬ 
fused, telling him a drink of whiskey would 
keep me cold all day and showing him my can of 
coffee. 
“‘Yer crazy, man, yer crazy!’ he screamed, 
as I pushed away. 
“Now, you folks,” I continued, “won’t need 
take any such chances, for I can fit both with 
rain coats, and don’t forget, in this drizzle, blue¬ 
bill will work up and down the slough to beat 
the band.” 
This statement made my clerical friends as 
excited as two school boys off for a Saturday’s 
rabbit hunt. They hardly tasted breakfast and 
were even a little impatient, no not impatient 
either; they were too jovially good natured for 
that—well, just a little bit over-anxious, we will 
The Rector Goes A Wading 
By EDWARD T. MARTIN 
