April 16, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
609 
punt after ducks in a spell of zero weather and 
was frozen to death. 
We have all known the ideal partner at some 
time in our lives—and loved him. We have lain 
all day with him in a blind when the ducks did 
not fly, and he has never said, “Let’s give it up.” 
He has been ever willing to see success just be¬ 
low the horizon. When your 
own strong hopes flagged, he has 
cheered them. 
“We’ll wait just five minutes 
more,” he would say. And then 
when the five had lengthened to 
twenty, he would begin again 
with “Just five more.” Thus he 
kept your anticipation alive,- not 
infrequently to the profit of the 
day’s bag. 
There is a man of that kind 
that I have in mind to-day. I 
have never counted a day’s shoot 
with him on the marshes a fail¬ 
ure, though often our bag has 
been small. With a northeaster 
shoving dry snow between my 
collar and my neck, I have lain 
with him in a blind from sun¬ 
rise to sunset and waited for 
ducks that seldom came. But go 
home? He never thought of it. 
“Tell you what we’ll do,” he 
used to propose; “I’ll bet you two 
shells against your two shells that 
I can come nearer guessing what 
kind and how many birds come to 
the decoys next.” 
“All right, I guess two mal¬ 
lards,” I would say. 
“Nope, you’re wrong; four pin¬ 
tails,” he would counter, and then 
he would wait for chance to de¬ 
cide the wager. It was in the 
nature of a game of poker with¬ 
out the skill, until one day he 
made three correct guesses in 
succession, and then I caught him 
slipping the shells I handed over 
in payment back into my own car¬ 
tridge box. He laughed idioti¬ 
cally at my suspicions and then 
confided that while I had been 
absorbed in my pipe, he had 
waited for the birds to heave in 
sight before making his guess. 
After that I made him forswear 
all underhand methods. 
I know another man. He was 
a shooting partner of mine ten 
years ago. He still is, whenever 
I can kick over the traces at the 
office. I have shot with him 
along the open waters of the 
coast where the shooting is the 
hardest, and he was always there 
for his part of the work. When 
the day was over and the wind¬ 
swept twilight closed in, I have faced with him 
the unlovely task of picking up one hundred de¬ 
coys. Often we were wet and half frozen. Fre¬ 
quently the decoys were coated with ice and the 
anchor lines felt like hot steel in our hands, but 
I never heard this man whimper. Others have 
said: “Oh, you pick up and I’ll row you back 
to the boat.” But he was not that kind. “Come 
on , old nian, he would say, let s dig in and get for an enthusiastic employer in business than you 
the blamed job done.” Of course I dug. do for a professional pessimist! It works the 
It is ever a pleasure to hunt with a man like same afield. Your partner is afflicted with a 
that. You feel confidence in him, trust' him, contagious disease—enthusiasm, and you fall vic- 
know tnat he trusts you, and of course you have tim to his malady. 
got to be up to the mark all the time. You Now, by enthusiasm I do not mean wild un¬ 
know that if an edge of broken ice is all that restraint. A man can be enthusiastic and not 
jeopardize your life by pointing 
a cocked shotgun at you in his 
uncontrolled excitement at seeing 
a bunch of birds swing to stool. 
The ideal partner is that man 
who can crouch at your side, 
every muscle tense, every nerve 
thrilling, but every muscle and 
nerve under complete control. A 
reckless partner should be avoid¬ 
ed even more than a lazy or in¬ 
different one. 
And then there is the other 
type. Most of you know him 
through sad experience. His 
species abounds among the guides 
of inland and coast. Also there 
is an ample sprinkling of him to 
be found among the city-bred 
hunters. He is the man who 
hates work, trembles at the men¬ 
tion of hardship of the most 
trifling sort, even though that 
hardship may lead to a certainty 
of sport, and is generally a weak 
sister to your endeavors. There 
is nothing like his breed to put a 
damper on enjoyment. He first 
spoils your fun; then drives you 
to desperation and rage. He 
makes pious men curse and pro¬ 
fane men rave. 
You know him well. He is 
forever seeing signs unfavorable 
in everything. When you are out 
battery shooting with him, he 
says: “Oh, let me sleep a little 
longer” as you try to get him up 
in time to beat a certain pot¬ 
hunter to a favored bar. The 
slightest darkness in the sky sug¬ 
gests a dangerous storm that 
makes it imperative to start for 
home, and the most tame and 
docile breeze drives him into a 
frightful apprehension that the 
battery will sink, the decoys will 
be lost, and he will drown—it does 
not make any difference about 
you. If a bird does not endeavor 
to fly down the barrel of his gun 
every fifteen seconds, he becomes 
discouraged and wants to give it 
up, and as for chill weather, why 
the slightest dash of snow or the 
dropping of the mercury to thirty 
makes him shiver until the chat¬ 
tering of his teeth is enough to 
drive every bird out of the bay. 
He is much the same in the woods. You must 
carry the canoe over the portage, while with 
huge effort he lugs the nine-ounce fly-rod. If 
you shoot a deer while he is snoozing against 
a stump a hundred yards away, he immediately 
seizes his rifle, and firing it into the air as you 
partner has that sterling quality, you are going are walking toward the prostrate game, cries: “I 
to enjoy him. How much better work you do got him—a great shot I made—a truly great shot !’ r 
SHADOWS ON THE HACKENSACK RIVER. 
From a photograph by Perry D. Frazer. 
separates you from eternity, he will risk that 
broken edge to help you—risk it without hesita¬ 
tion, without a thought of consequences to him¬ 
self. You know that you can depend on him 
in a tight place. 
1 he secret of it all is enthusiasm. If your 
