514 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Sept. 30, 1911. 
the sou’wester was blowing directly through its 
narrow length, making it impossible to work a 
boat down it, and Anse had asked me if I knew 
what a “yaller-pine breeze” was. I did not at 
the time, but before the next hour had passed 
1 could describe it with variations. Those 
meadow creeks have bottoms of the softest, 
stickiest mud, and when you shove a good-sized 
boat through one a mi'e and a half long, using 
a heavy, twenty-foot pole, none too carefully 
dressed, either, so that when you are not pulling 
sharp-pointed splinters out of your blistering 
palms you are wondering whether the pole is 
coming out of the mud or you are going over¬ 
board with it, it means hard back-breaking 
work But on this occasion I sat at ease upon 
a locker, comfortably puffing at my pipe and 
listening to the put-put-put of the engine. 
Anse must have known what was passing 
through my mind, for suddenly he turned and 
asked, grinning craftily, “Durn sight easier ’n 
polin’, ain’t it?” 
We left the Louise moored to the meadow 
bank three hundred yards from the little pond 
over which Anse had predicted “they would be 
flyin’,” and tramped to it through the long 
grass, burdened with guns, ammunition and the 
baskets of decoys. Then, acting under in¬ 
structions, I labored to construct a blind at the 
water's edge with bushes and drift wood. He 
would not allow me to assist in putting out the 
decoys, however. “ ’Tain’t everybody’s got the 
knack of settin’ out stool so’s they look natural,” 
he explained. “An’, whether you believe it or 
not, that’s jest the reason I has shootin’ some¬ 
times when the other fellers can't get ’em ’thin 
gunshot. Wait ’ll I stick up them two or three, 
an' then tell me if they don't make a good 
showin’.” 
When the last decoy had been put out he 
stepped back to view his work, and after a 
change here and there, the better to suit his 
critical taste, he grunted approval. For the life 
of me I could not see just what difference it 
made whether the yellow-leg or plover stool 
were placed to leeward, or why he put the half- 
dozen larger decoys, intended to represent 
wi let and jacksnipe, off to one side a bit, and a 
trifle nearer the grassy border of the pond. 
“Why do I put them yaller-leg at the tail of 
the rig? If you’d only stop an’ think a minit 
you wouldn't have to ask. What kind of snipe 
does we mostly kill on the medders? Yaller- 
leg, you say. Well, now you jest figger it out. 
Birds all stool from lu’ard, sure, an’ the first 
stool they see close by is the tail-enders. Now. 
ain’t it plain why I put them yaller-leg stool 
there? They'll come in, whistlin’ an’ cluckin’ 
to each other, an’ won’t it make ’em feel a darn 
sight more to home like if, the first thing they 
sees is a dozen or so more of their kind standin’ 
’round in the water. Sure it will. An’ them big 
stool. Oh, I jest sticks them up close under 
the grass ’cause that’s where you’d nacherlly 
find a willet or a jacksnipe standin’. They likes 
the edges of the pond an' ain’t no great ban's 
to go galivantin’ ’round in the open.” 
Which goes to show that Anse had studied 
snipe habits until it was instinctive for him to 
do these little things as they should be done, 
and especially if a man shoots for market and 
birds represent dollars and cents, are his wits 
sharpened. 
“Yes, siree. Them little tricks all used to 
help ’th the size of the checks,” he was saying. 
“Why, I 'member one mornin’ brother Sol an' 
me was—git down, git down,” he admonished 
sharply, and puckering his lips lie whistled, 
“Pheu-pheu, pheu, pheu.” One long shrill note 
and then three others following it in close suc¬ 
cession, and from over the meadows, like an 
echo, came an answer. 
“Yellow-leg, Anse?” I whispered, and he 
nodded affirmatively. I gripped the gun a trifle 
harder and peered out through the concealing 
bushes. Then Anse whistled again, this time 
more softly and with a persuasive quality in the 
notes, and the reply was just as prompt and 
clear. 
“They're coming from back of us. Be ready. 
Never mind lookin’ 'round. Now they’re settin' 
their wings. Right over the edge of the pond. 
Jest a minit. Wait. Wait, I tell yer. There they 
are. Right over the stool. Now! Give it to 
’em! Quick!” 
It is natural to admire proficiency in anything, 
and to watch Anse in action with that old 
double-barrel of his, its antiquated hammers 
showing far above the line of sight, makes you 
secretly wish that you were one-halt" as adept 
in handling your more modern weapon. And he 
does it so easily. With the precision of a ma¬ 
chine the gun is swung to his shoulder, the 
trigger pressed, and whether it be snipe or 
duck, flying low or flying high, before him or 
behind him, just settling into the decoys or 
flying by with the speed of the wind, let that 
unfortunate bird be within the requisite forty 
yards and he drops. 
“How do you do it, Anse?” I asked, after he 
had just made a double that I would have de¬ 
clared absolutely impossible. 
“I dunno, do you?” he replied, a grin wrink¬ 
ling his face. “ I jest points this ol’ bunch of 
pot-metal where I think it ’ll do the most good 
an’ lets her go.” 
“But you miss sometimes, don’t you?”. 
“Mebbe I do, but not them things,” he de¬ 
clared, with a contemptuous wave in the direc¬ 
tion of the two snipe he had just killed, now 
floating on the waters of the pond. “Anybody 
oughter kill ’em. Why, they’re-. Say, 
speakin’ of missin’, though. I’ll tell you when I 
did make a show of myself, ’fore I got outer 
the game. 
“ ’Twas ’long back in the seventies, an’ I had 
been gunnin’ long enough to give folks an idea 
I could shoot. Ducks all fall an’ winter an' 
snipe springs an' summers. Game laws didn’t 
'mount to much them days. Well, anyhow, 
some of the boys got a notion to have a pigeon 
shoot an’ of course I joined in ’th the rest an’ 
paid my money for a chance. Ten dollars it 
was an’ all to go to buy a gun for the winner, 
lessen expenses for birds an’ sech. Fifteen 
come in, so you can see there was money ’nough 
to get a pretty fair sort of a gun. We was to 
shoot at twenty-five birds each in strings of 
five, an’ after three or four fellers had shot, it 
comes my turn. 
“ ’Course I was feelin’ that my chances was 
good’s anybody’s, an’ mebbe a leetle bit better, 
so I walks up, hollers ‘pull,’ an’, by gosh, missed 
him clean. An’ then I missed the nex’ one an’ 
was ’bout ready to quit. Say. That was in the 
fall an’ I’d been killin’ duck so reg’lar that the 
feller who was tendin’ me used to count my 
shots an’ figger on pickin’ up that many birds— 
an’ I didn't disappoint him much, either. If I 
hadn't got the ilex' three birds, I think I'd. 
left Amityville for that winter anyhow, but. 
somehow I scrags ’em down, not clean, yon 
understand, jest more by luck than good shoot¬ 
in’ an' then, while I’m waitin’ for my turn to^ 
come 'round, I scratches my head an’ tries tO' 
work out what’s the matter ’th me. 
“By-an’-by I hits it, an’ when I goes up to- 
shoot again, wdiatcher think I do? Couldn't 
guess in a hundred years, could you? Well, I'll 
tell yer. I walks up to the mark where we was 
’spected to stand, but, ’stead of standin’, I sets- 
down!. ‘Ready,’ I sings out, but the man what 
pulled the string that lets the birds loose don’t 
answer. ‘Ready,’ I says again, an’ then he hol¬ 
lers, ‘What’s the matter ’th you, Anse Saxon?' 
Git up on your feet an’ shoot.’ ‘If there ain't 
no law ’gainst settin’ down, Bill James,’ I says, 
‘I’m goin’ to try ’em settin’.’ Well, they argued 
a spell, but fin'lly decides that if I'm fool enough 
to want to shoot settin’ I can go ahead an’ do 
it. so I asks once more, ‘Ready?’ Bill answers 
‘Ready,’ an’ then I yells ‘Pull,’ an’ say! I killed' 
that bird cleaner’n a whistle an’ several more 
jest as easy. That’s all there is to it. Jest a 
matter of gettin’ used to shootin’ one way. You 
see, I was doin’ all mine lyin’ in a battery or a 
snipe blind, an’ when you put me to shootin’' 
standin’ up I handles my gun like a cow. Yep. 
Get into the habit of doin’ a thing one way, aiT 
to be ’cessful you’ve gotter keep on jest the 
same.” And Anse craned his neck above the 
blind and whistled invitingly to a flock of little 
ox-eyes. 
“But how did it end, Anse? Is that all?” 
“Sure it’s all. Wa'nt you askin’ if I ever 
missed?” 
“That was what I did ask you, but now I want 
to know who got that gun.” 
“Oh, that’s what’s worryin’ you, eh? Well,, 
seein’ that I can relieve your mind so easy. I’ll 
tell. The winnin’ score was twenty-two birds 
killed an' here’s the gun was won by killin' ’em.” 
And Anse chuckled as he held the gun out for 
my closer inspection. 
With the falling of the tide the flight of snipe 
slackened over the meadows. Across the chan¬ 
nel we could see them flying along, sometimes 
high and sometimes barely clearing the crests 
of the little waves, but never a one came over 
our decoys, now that the sandbars were un¬ 
covering. 
“ ’Taint no use,” Anse declared, after whist¬ 
ling in response to my repeated urging until 
his lips were dry, “they’re bound to feed on the 
bars ’til the nex’ high water an’ either we want 
to rig out over there or give up the idea of 
shootin’ ’til late in the afternoon. But, say, 
speakin’ of feedin’, ’spose we has a snack our¬ 
selves. From four to ’leven's a longish time.” 
So we adjourned to the cabin of the Louise; 
and Anse began the preparation of the ‘snack,’ 
while I sat on a locker idly wondering just why 
I had missed that last yellow-leg. Then it oc¬ 
curred to me that now was an excellent time 
for photographing, and as Anse intimated that 
it would be a quarter hour or so before the 
meal would be ready, I pulled the camera from 
its case and set out in quest of local color. 
Five minutes afterward I would have traded 
an excellent 3 f 4 x 5/ / 2 camera with six unexposed 
films for almost any kind of a gun and two 
shells, loaded with No. 9 shot. Concealed by 
