September, 1918 
FOREST AND STREAM 
523 
we are so accustomed to talk in billions, 
it would be folly to attempt to say what 
numbers of geese (including the several 
families of brant) ; ducks of many species; 
swan, pelican, sand-hill cranes, and other 
migratory water birds passed up and down 
that stream in their semi-annual travels. 
They were absolutely innumerable. Early 
western gunners paid no attention to wood¬ 
cock, jack-snipe, curlew, or any of the 
plover family, though their number was 
beyond computation. 
The city of Council Bluffs, now extend¬ 
ing widely over the Missouri River bottom 
lands, developed from a Mormon settle¬ 
ment made in 1846 and originally known as 
Miller’s Hollow, later officially christened 
Kanesville by the “Saints,” located in a 
small valley among rugged bluffs that rise 
to heights of from one hundred to one 
hundred and fifty feet on either side of the 
little stream called Indian creek. At di¬ 
stances ranging from one mile to two and 
one half miles from the original settlement 
Mosquito Creek half encircled the site, on 
the east and south, flowing through a val¬ 
ley, varying in width from a few hundred 
yards to upward of a mile, on each side of 
which arose bluffs or hills similar to those 
among which the old town nestled, and 
passed out to the river bottom through a 
narrow opening about a mile from the cen¬ 
ter of the town. 
T HE winter of 1856-57 was the most 
severe experienced by the pioneer 
s&VWers in that region and it has not 
been equalled since. Snow fell early in 
the season and accumulated from month 
to month until it reached an average level 
depth of from two feet to thirty inches, 
drifting in many places to such heights that 
one might drive over the tops of farm 
fences without knowledge of their exist¬ 
ence. Cold rains, sleet, and continuous 
freezing temperatures formed a heavy crust 
on the snow of such strength that, save in 
spots where the hazel bushes or other growth 
came near the surface, one might safely 
walk upon it without the aid of snow shoes. 
Throughout the entire Missouri Slope this 
was known among the people for many 
years as “the winter of the deep snow.” 
The result, insofar as wild life was con¬ 
cerned, was the practical annihilation of the 
quail and almost total destruction of the 
wild turkeys and the deer. The latter, un¬ 
able to escape their enemies, because of 
plunging through the ice crust when at¬ 
tempting to run, became easy victims to the 
coyotes and other carnivorous animals as 
well as of brutal men who run them down 
and, in many instances, slew them with 
knives, hatches and axes. They were so 
starved and emaciated as to be almost use¬ 
less for food purposes; yet men killed them 
for the mere enjoyment of the killing; and, 
after extracting the least bad portions, 
either left the carcasses where they fell, 
threw them to the hogs or fed them to their 
yellow dogs. 
This mantle of ice and snow remained 
until late in the spring (a very unusual oc- 
turrence in that locality), and was suddenly 
| [removed by soft southern winds and warm 
rain torrential in character, resulting in 
herefore unheard-of high freshets in all 
af the streams. The Mosquito valley was 
submerged from hill to hill for many miles 
along its course and thousands of bushels 
of corn, which had been left standing in the 
valley fields in shocks, as was the custom 
among the early farmers, were swept down 
the stream, spread over the valley bottoms 
and deposited among the silt as the waters 
receded. This occurred at the very time 
when the northward flight of the migratory 
waterfowl was at its height. 
The excellent feeding ground thus cre¬ 
ated was soon discovered by the birds, 
especially the ducks, and they swarmed to 
and fro, into and out of the valley, from 
the little lakes dotted over the Missouri 
River bottoms and the sand bars in the 
river, where their nights were spent. One 
continuous stream coming and going from 
early dawn to dewy eve, all passing 
through the narrow gorge where the creek 
debouched upon the plain, at such low ele¬ 
vation that there was no time—probably 
not one minute—during the live-long day 
when a gunner stationed near the creek, for 
half a mile or more above the gorge, had 
not birds within his range. The whirring 
of the wings was like the roar of a wind 
storm. So numerous were the ducks, and 
so closely packed in flight were they, cover 
for the shooter was of no consequence. 
Spring shooting was not then taboo 
(more’s the pity) and those pioneers knew 
no better than to kill as many birds as they 
could, each striving to outdo the other. 
They had no thought, and would not have 
believed had suggestion to such effect been 
made, that the apparently inexhaustible 
supply of ducks could ever become extin¬ 
guished. As one of the sinners I offer this 
poor apology, lame as, it may appear to 
those who may be unable to comprehend 
the situation as I have tried to present it. 
The wonderful flight, so unsatisfactorily 
described because of lack of vocabulary to 
adequately present the facts, continued for 
something like a week during which there 
were many gunners upon the ground. 
There were no breech-loading shotguns in 
that section then. A few had double bar¬ 
rels; some old-fashioned English single 
fowling pieces; others heavy smooth bores, 
or discarded Harper’s Ferry flintlock musk¬ 
ets altered to percussion fire, which latter 
was described in a magazine article recently 
published as “about as shapely as a crow¬ 
bar; almost as heavy, and only a little more 
deadly at twenty yards.” Some of the best 
equipped and most expert among the gun¬ 
ners participating in the massacre herein 
mentioned made a daily average bag of 
more than a hundred birds each during the 
period of the flight. 
O NE morning at about eight o’clock, 
when the opportunity for murder was 
at the maximum, my father and I 
walked over the hills from our home, a lit¬ 
tle more than a mile from the upper end 
of the shooting ground, to participate in the 
sport ( ?) of which we had received glow¬ 
ing accounts. We found a number of 
shooters already there; so, selecting the 
most desirable unoccupied stands, we began 
firing into the passing throng of innocents. 
By eleven o’clock our supply of ammuni¬ 
tion was exhausted and we were compelled 
to retire. Our little raid resulted in a joint 
»bag of nearly one hundred ducks, chiefly 
redheads, of which number, it is perhaps 
superfluous to say, father was responsible 
for the greater share. 
Among those engaged in killing that 
morning were Wicks M- and Shep 
McF-; the former a crack shot and 
the latter one of those who always carried 
a loaded flask on gunning trips—(and used 
it). M-was scoring at nearly every 
shot while McF- was missing with a 
regularity remarkable. After an hour or 
so, as one of M-’s birds was falling 
near McF-— -, the latter fired at it right 
and left. 
“Here,” cried M-, “Shep, why in the 
devil are you shooting at my dead bird ?” 
“Well, begad,” explained McF-, “I’ve 
been shooting here all morning and have’nt 
got a d—d thing, and I wanted to hear 
something drap after I shot.” 
A mile or more below the point where 
the Mosquito emerged from the hills Pony 
Creek spread at the foot of the bluffs 
forming a small lake and great marsh, 
wherein grew wild rice, celery and other 
delectable foods for aquatic birds, and this 
was a famous resort of wild geese and 
brant in ye olden time. I bagged six Can¬ 
ada geese there in less than one hour one 
late October morning. 
On the hillsides above the little lake the 
new grass shoots of early spring were 
tempting morsels for the birds, especially 
white brant. I have seen more than one 
hundred acres of this upland, blackened as 
it was by late prairie fires, so covered by 
white brant on a late afternoon in spring; 
as to suggest, when viewed at a distance,, 
that a recent snow storm had visited the 
spot. How many birds there were to the- 
acre would be difficult to estimate; per¬ 
haps forty thousand would not be an 'exag¬ 
geration. The flesh of these birds was; 
inferior, but they made an easy target and 
came down with a thud pleasing to the 
ear of the ruthless slayer, and were far less 
wary of the gunner than their great and 
wise gray cousins whose “honk, honk,” 
from high in the air, comes like a cheerful 
bugle call causing a tingle in the blood of 
the lover of shooting when first heard at 
the beginning of the season. 
I T must not be assumed that all of the 
birds slaughtered as herein described 
were mere victims to the lust for killing. 
It was usual among the hunters of that 
early day to distribute a portion of each 
day’s bag among non-shooting neighbors. 
Much of the flesh was put in pickle and 
preserved for winter use, and the feathers 
were conserved and built into that old- 
fashioned family comfort known as the 
feather bed. The wings from the larger 
birds afforded material for and excellently 
served the purpose of dusters about the 
home, occupying a place now supplied by 
bristle brushes manufactured at great ex¬ 
pense and requiring costly transportation. 
From my own shooting during several 
seasons, in the early sixties (before and 
after marriage), were made a large feather 
bed and several bolsters and pillows such 
as our daddies used, and some of those 
feathers are still doing duty in my home 
in the form of pillows, cushions, etc. My 
wife says that, in memory, she can yet feel 
the sore fingers acquired by the plucking. 
