Forest and Stream 
$3 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy, 
Six Months, $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1913. 
VOL. LXXX.—No. 5. 
127 Franklin St., New York. 
About this Time of the Year 
By SANDY GRISWOLD 
I NVARIABLY, about this time of the year, 
after the last hunting days have faded away 
in the dim umber of the delayed winter hosts, 
when the blazing fire feels better than ever be¬ 
fore, is when we old rovers of the field, sit and 
dream of the days gone by, and hope longingly 
for a few more to come. And as I recline here 
this cold and lowering afternoon before my own 
blazing log fire, my memory goes back, with 
ecstatic vividness, to the first hunt I ever had, 
with my beloved old shooting pal, Sam Rich¬ 
mond, nOw an esteemed resident of the beauti¬ 
ful little city of Wolbach, up on the singing 
Loup. 
We were on the broad and then houseless 
flats, leading aw^ay both to the north and to the 
south from the legendary old Prairie Creek, 
north of Clarks, out on the Union Pacific. 
It was long about the middle of March and 
all the immeasurable lowlands about the old 
Pawnee ranch—famous in its day—were soft and 
oozy and swarming with jacksnipe. 
i\Iany ponds were caused that spring by the 
overflow of Prairie Creek. These puddles were 
in some instances a mile or more in circumfer¬ 
ence, and this morning they were all frozen 
over, hut one of the deepest, where immense 
numbers of wdldfowl had congregated—ducks— 
principally pintails, and geese and the so-called 
brant, which are nothing more nor less than 
speckled front geese. 
Sam and I were out of camp by daylight. 
I planted myself amid some old ragged tumble 
weeds, which I had hastily scraped together, 
while Sam did the same thing a hundred yards 
above. We both began shooting right and left 
and overhead almost immediately. The birds 
fell, not like rain, but just like ducks, and still 
they came, off from the distant feeding fields 
and from over the low hills down toward the 
Platte, all to this one partially open piece of 
backwater. This continued unabated until we 
were out of shells. I had never shot a Canada 
goose or a speckle front in this part of the 
country before that morning, and my first shot 
at the latter was when a flock of eighteen or 
twenty came dipping with the wind down to the 
glistening water. They passed me all together, 
their heads in line, about thirty-five yards away. 
I killed four with the first barrel, and as they 
broke, the fifth, with my second. That was a 
fine starter on speckled fronts, and Sam yelled 
congratulations. 
However, he was too busy with his own job 
to have much time watching me. A few moments 
later I heard that sonorous, but ever thrilling 
auh-unk of a Canada goose. O, yes, I was quite 
familiar with the note, although this was my 
first hunt on the Platte. 
Peering eargerly around I quickly saw two 
big geese coming straight at me, about ten yards 
high, from the direction of the creek. I flat¬ 
tened myself out among the weeds, until I could 
see the birds’ beady eyes. Then I leaped to my 
feet and dropped one with each barrel in as 
good style as Sam himself could have done it. 
It is expressing it mildly when I say that after 
this had happened I was the proudest man prob¬ 
ably from Brady’s Island to Rogers, and Sam, 
too, entered into my elation with equal zest. He 
was a mere boy then, but oh my ! oh me ! what 
a goose hunter. 
That same morning, while standing on the 
thick ice over one of the reaches in the creek, 
I shot a white goose. He was about sixty yards 
up and straight above me. Down he came like 
a thousand of bricks, which was strong enough 
to bear my 150 pounds of avoirdupois, slick as 
a whistle, not half a dozen feet from where I 
was standing, and went through the ice. 
“Don't mind him,” remarked Sam, as I made 
ready to try and fish him out with my gun 
barrel; “he isn't fit for anything, anyway. If 
