Oct. 12, 1912 
FOREST AND STREAM 
457 
Chapter III. 
HE day following that awful night was near¬ 
ly as blustery. 
A close study of the map showed that 
there were no long reaches (a straight bit of 
river) for some miles, and we decided to travel 
along, as it was every whit as convenient as lying 
idle with nothing to do. The water was roiled 
and no game fish were killed for the time being. 
Weighing anchor we started and no sooner 
pointed the little ship’s head south than we saw 
a clammer-trapper swinging along the bank with 
a string of ducks. This stopped us again. If 
he could find them such a morning, we should 
be able to. 
Again the map. Beside the river’s main 
channel are numerous little sloughs and pot-holes 
which are more or less full of water, according 
to the rains and the stage of the river during 
spring. These were all on the right of us ac¬ 
cording to the map. At the foot of the island 
we found a camping party of men and women 
from Dubuque and anchored near them, while 
the gunner of our party got into his waders and 
essayed forth with his double barrel scatter-stick 
and fox terrier dog, the latter said to be the 
peer of any duck retriever ever whelped. 
At noon the nimrod returned with a lucky 
bag of seven birds, a mixed bag of red-heads, 
ruddy ducks, mallards and shovelers. But they 
would furnish a lot of steam on which we could 
delve into the past hunting trips and cruising 
jaunts of yore, so we accepted them and pulled 
southward. 
Other than the great numbers of young ducks 
we saw from hour to hour during our southward 
progress, nothing happened until we arrived at 
Le Claire, la., the sleepiest town we ever saw 
for the amount of important business done there. 
This place is the head of the celebrated Rock 
Island Rapids, the most treacherous piece of 
water on the upper river. We landed and looked 
about for a pilot, and did not have far to look, 
as they swarmed down in droves, and each 
wanted the job of taking us through. 
A kindly pair of old-time blue-eyes, set in 
a face that looked honest and the whole capped 
with a good Irish name—these were our guide 
marks, and they proved good. Captain Dorrance, 
who took us through eighteen miles of rocks and 
swift water, pointed out everything of interest 
and gave us the history of the rapids and the 
boats that had gone to pieces in them. He has 
been piloting Government vessels and other craft 
through the waters for thirty years and has each 
ugly boulder named. When we shot under the 
bridge that joins Davenport and Rock Island, we 
were glad enough to be through the rapids. At 
some points the water boiled up so ferociously 
underneath the boat that it tried to shove it out 
of the water. Other places the water would 
swing the boat so swiftly that it seemed as if 
the rudder would not bring it back on a true 
course or even counteract the effect of the mad 
water. 
From Rock Island it was but a run of a day 
or even less to make Burlington. We had al¬ 
ready seen the effects of the high water in the 
Black River. Fishing was disturbed except for 
catfish in the muddy water, and any night one 
wanted to throw a couple of hooks over the 
side, we could count on fish for breakfast. Chan¬ 
nel cat are finely grained and very palatable. One 
night we set the usual cat line, and when nlorn- 
ing came, the fish had succeeded in getting the 
line wound about the propellor, and then Mr. 
Skipper swore and got into his bathing suit and 
overside he went into the grime to dive under 
the boat and cut the twine that had been wrap¬ 
ped about his precious wheel and rudder irons. 
But he saved the fish, a seven-pound cat, and 
when dinner came, he sat at the head of the 
gravity table and smiled as the choicest cut on 
the baked catfish smothered his plate. 
Fishing at Burlington was confined to bass 
casting in the Henderson River, four miles above 
the city. This was fairly good, though none of 
the larger fish would come up to strike. When 
bass work up-stream the whole summer, it seems 
unreasonable to find them much below Lake 
Pepin and Lac St. Croix, both these excellent 
wintering points for them and providential of 
cool waters during the heated tail-end of sum¬ 
mer. 
Before we arrived in Burlington we began 
to notice the increasing number of ducks. It 
seemed as if they worked down the feeders of 
the great artery, and then took its pathway south. 
Mudhens by the thousand we encountered be¬ 
tween Muscatine and Burlington. The weather 
was very windy and they preferred floating 
rather than winging their passage southward. 
Down the river past Fort Madison and into 
the head of the Des Moines Rapids at Nashville 
we shot. The water was high, and when we took 
the bit in our teeth and started down the first 
chain of rocks, buoyed here and there with red 
and black buoys, great mounds of rock, painted 
first red and then black, each painted thing a 
beacon calling us to it or from it, we were slight¬ 
ly atremble. The canal around the rapids is 
eight miles long, but one cannot get into it until 
you pass the first chain, as it is called, and then 
drop into the dry dock yards of the Government 
and the basin at the head of the first locks that 
let you in. 
Game was seen on every hand. Myriads of 
red-heads, mallards, blue-wing and green-wing 
teal, canvasbacks and bluebills were most noticed. 
Once in a while we would descry on the distant 
horizon a flock of honkers that made the mouth 
water for a slice off a breast that had taken on 
juciness while foraging in the corn or stubble 
fields. 
Keokuk is at the foot of the locks of the 
Des Moines Rapids Canal. Below Keokuk we 
met a contracting fleet of barges and steamers 
doing work for the Government and halted to 
get the guns out and shake pecan and hickory 
nut trees. We were in the shadows of three 
States. The Government inspectors kindly sug¬ 
gested that after their day’s work was done, they 
would take their power skiffs and chase ducks. 
One day lengthened into three and three to a 
week. We hunted from the skiffs every night 
with varying success. Into out-of-the-way 
sloughs we traveled, sometimes potting a bird 
almost in the barnyard of some island clammer- 
farmer. The kills were usually small, though 
with plenty of gravy to float about in, they man¬ 
aged to give all of us at the inspector’s table 
a goodly bite. 
The river was rising steadily. Fall rains 
had boosted everything that drained into the Mis¬ 
sissippi. One great sand-bar called Polly Bar, 
was alive, or said to be, with rabbits, and as no 
one had shot on it during the fall, we planned 
a hunt down that way. It was a couple of miles 
below the fleet of working boats. On the island 
were a group of brush-cutters who were getting- 
out matting for the building of dams to main¬ 
tain the channel. On our arrival we made out 
their location, so we would not shoot their way, 
and then began thrashing brush. The bar was in 
reality nothing but a small island about a half 
mile long and 300 yards wide, and before the 
raise had been joined to the mainland and an¬ 
other island, both pieces of ground having been 
overflowed and forcing the rabbits to come on 
to the island we had picked for the hunt. 
With the exception of a rabbit shoot in 
Kansas years before, we had never seen so many 
cottontails. The dogs would start one from the 
brush, and before they had pursued it a dozen 
yards, another would flop out of the brush and 
call them after it. And the shooting was all 
snap shooting. One could not get gun to shoul¬ 
der in the dense brush. After a couple of hours’ 
hunting, we had an even two dozen, which would 
make happy the hearts of the fleet gang, itinerant 
workmen who flocked north in summer and south 
in winter. These fellows built a bonfire every 
night and roasted what game they could get, it 
being a great addition to their fare. 
But we had to hurry along. Already we 
(Continued on page 473.) 
