and intelligent people. Mrs. Adcock 
had some of the best fried chicken I 
ever ate. As there is no timber of any 
sort in this section, “native coal” is 
largely used in cooking, always in 
starting a fire. This coal is found in 
quantities in the large pastures we 
visited. 
E visited School Lake, Ballard 
Marsh and other famous duck and 
goose hunting places in the afternoon, 
and saw thousands of ducks of all va- 
rieties on these lakes, and easily killed 
the limit. I have never seen such won- 
derful feeding places for ducks. Wild 
rice, wild celery and wild potatoes grow 
in great profusion in this territory, and 
these places not only attract the North- 
ern flight but furnish a wonderful 
breeding place for all the smaller 
ducks. The inaccessibility of the lakes, 
their width, and the marshes surround- 
ing them impressed the writer as places 
where ducks will forever frequent. 
An interesting sight around all these 
lakes is the muskrat domes. Muskrats 
cut canes and tall grasses and build 
a house about fifty feet from the shore, 
and four or five feet above the water. 
These mounds are sometimes ten feet 
in diameter at the base and come to a 
point at the top. The muskrat, which 
-abound in numbers in this locality, can 
be seen swimming around close to their 
places of abode, sometimes sunning 
themselves on top. The entrance is 
‘under the water, and these energetic 
little fur-bearing animals never permit 
‘the water to freeze over their door- 
way. We were told that the inside of 
these domes is divided into a number 
‘of compartments. 
Except for the fact 
that I would not 
like to destroy 
their homes I 
would like to in- - 
vestigate the in- 
side of one of 
these homes. Thou- 
sands of dollars is 
collected yearly by 
the Nebraskan 
trappers from the 
‘skins of muskrats. 
There are some 
beaver dams in 
this territory and 
‘many minks. The 
‘mink also has a 
‘peculiar home. He 
‘burrows a hole in 
‘the ground close 
‘to the edge of the 
‘water and has his 
apartments under 
ground with an 
opening also un- 
der water, so when 

pursued by an enemy he may enter his 
retreat either from land or water. 
We spent our second night at Mar- 
tin’s Ranch on Dewey Lake where Mrs. 
Martin served us about three dozen 
perch, fried in corn meal. I believe this 
was one of the most enjoyable meals 
I ever ate. Dewey Lake is literally 
stocked full of fish. One can scarcely 
paddle a boat on Dewey without hit- 
ting fish. The wife of a hunter at the 
ranch caught fifty black ring perch in 
sixty minutes, the catch weighing fifty 
pounds. Black bass, sun-fish and pick- 
erel are here in abundance. 
We spent the next day chicken hunt- 
ing, tramping over ranches containing 
from five to thirty thousand acres. The 
chickens were not tame by any means, 
but by hard work, miles and miles of 
walking, and most of all the wonder- 
ful shooting of my companion, Jack 
Hamel, we were again able to take in 
the limit. We spent another night at 
Martin’s Ranch and ate from a table 
piled high with canvasback ducks— 
good?—just go out and tramp all day 
over Nebraska ranches and sit down 
before a dozen or more roasted canvas- 
backs, real freshly killed ducks— 
enough said. 
HILE driving over prairies, we 
passed a town of prairie dogs. 
The town covered about twenty acres 
and was dotted with their little 
mounds, each with a fat little dog 
perched on top. Their homes are un- 
der the ground and they scampered in 
when we drove up for a close view of 
their city. They are very destructive 
to all vegetation. 

Plenty of grouse for two guns with a few ducks thrown in for good measure. 
eoge 
ng 
ie Mi ee Es. TMA 
We saw several coyotes trotting lazi- 
ly along the hillsides, but did not get 
in shooting distance. 
One of the morning’s at Martin’s 
Ranch we all arose at 4.30 to get the 
early flight of ducks. .The writer took 
a position in a natural sand pit on the 
side of a bluff near Dewey Lake. Day- 
light arrived about five o’clock and be- 
tween that time and sun-up we wit- 
nessed a beautiful panorama. 
HERE was not cloud in the sky as 
the sun began to appear in the 
East, casting its wonderful rays in all 
directions. And just at this time we 
caught the whir from the wings of 
ducks and geese. We had never seen 
such big bunches of wild fowl. The 
sky became darkened with them until 
the heavens seemed to be teeming with 
them. The geese were snarling and 
fussing, but the ducks, making no noise 
save with their wings, all headed South 
in front of cold weather. Upon glanc- 
ing at the water below one could ob- 
serve muskrats swimming from dome 
to dome, a mink slyly creep into his 
hole, a mud hen laboriously paddle 
along, and hear a coyote on a distant 
hill. One could observe grouse and 
prairie chickens moving away at a 
rapid speed. Large fish could be seen 
leaping from the water. All these and 
many other interesting sights were 
there for our early morning observa- 
tion. 
Jack and I spent a part of this past 
summer in Europe viewing the sights, 
but both agreed that nowhere had we 
seen sights half so interesting and at- 
tractive to us as on the lakes in the 
wilds, and the 
great open spaces 
of Nebraska and 
South Dakota. 
There is no paint- 
ing in the Louvre, 
no relic in the 
British Museum, 
no show and no 
opera which gives 
me the thrill and 
exuberant feeling 
I got from wit- 
nessing the scene 
which I have at- 
tempted feebly to 
describe. I would 
rather examine a 
muskrat’s dome 
than all the mu- 
seums in the world, 
and the music 
made by wild fowl 
in their flight and 

wild animals’ in 
hey their wanderings 
Bah is sweet enough. 
(Cont. on p. 759) 
125 
