the still water had its share. Not a breath of wind was stirring.
Through the silence could be heard more plainly the roar of the surf far
away. The quacking of ducks came from near and far. Nothing of the marsh
was visible.
Bobby took his place on the shell-box in the bow, his rifle between his
knees. Curly, without awaiting command, jumped in and lay at his feet.
Mr. Kincaid stepped in aft. Bobby could feel the quiver of the boat as
it took the weight, but having been instructed to sit quiet, he did not
look around. The craft received an impetus and moved forward.
Immediately the breaking of thin scum ice set up a crackling.
"Pretty cold!" said Bobby.
"Don't talk," replied Mr. Kincaid in a guarded voice.
They moved forward in silence. Only the slight crackling at the prow,
the soft dip of the paddle, and an occasional breath of effort from the
paddler broke the stillness. The motion forward was slow; for the back
suction in the shallow, narrow channel, which they almost immediately
entered, stopped the boat at the end of each paddle stroke. Bobby was
vaguely aware of high reeds or low banks on either side; but he could
not see ten feet ahead, and he wondered how Mr. Kincaid could tell
where to go. Shortly the latter put aside his paddle in favour of the
punting pole. Bobby, stealing a glance over his shoulder, saw him
standing against the sky.
From right and left, in mysterious side lagoons and pockets, came the
low quacking and chattering of wildfowl, now close at hand. They were,
of course, quite invisible; but their proximity was exciting. Twice the
duck-boat approached so close as to alarm them into flight. They arose,
then, with a mighty quacking. Bobby could see the silver of broken water
where they took wing; but although there seemed to be enough light
against the sky, he could not make out the birds themselves. He clasped
his rifle close, and shivered with delight, and patted Curly to relieve
his feelings.
For a long time, and for a tremendous distance as it seemed to Bobby
they crept along through the lagoons and channels of the marshes. The
dawn had not come yet, but the air was getting grayer in anticipation of
it, and the wind began to blow faintly from the direction of the Lake.
Bobby could see the shapes of the grasses and cat-tails, and make out
the bodies of water through which they passed. Almost he could catch the
flight of ducks as they leaped; and quite distinctly he saw a flash of
teal that passed with a startling rush of wings within a dozen feet of
the boat.
And then deliberately the whole universe turned faintly gray, and the
smaller stars faded in the lucence of dawn, and the brief, weird world
of half-light came into being. At the same moment, Mr. Kincaid turned
the boat to the left, forced it by main strength through a thick fringe
of reeds, and debouched on a little round pond silvering in the dawn.
The crackling of the duck-boat through the reeds was answered by a roar
like the breaking of a great wave. Bobby saw very dimly the rise of
hundreds of ducks straight up into the air. The roar of the first leap
was immediately succeeded by the whistling of flight.
"My!" breathed Bobby to Curly, "My! My! My!"
But a second roar thundered, as a second and larger flight took wing;
and then after an interval a third. The air all around seemed full of
ducks circling in and out the limited range of vision before finally
taking their departure.
Mr. Kincaid, however, pushed forward without paying the slightest
attention to this abundance. Fifteen or twenty yards out in the pond he
brought the boat to a stand-still by thrusting his punting-pole far down
into the mud.
"We're here, Bobby," he said in a guarded tone. "Turn around very
carefully, take off your mittens and help me put out the decoys."
"My, there's a lot of 'em," ventured Bobby in a whisper.
"Yes, this is called the Mud Hen Hole. It's the best place in the
marshes. Quick! Get to work! It's getting near daylight!"
Bobby helped unwind the cords from around the necks of the decoys and
drop them overboard. Mr. Kincaid moved the boat here and there,
scattering the flock in a life-like manner. The gray daylight was coming
stronger every instant. Even while they worked in plain sight, big
flocks of teal and blue-bill stooped toward them and whirled around them
with a rush of wings.
"They're awful close!" whispered Bobby excitedly, "why don't you shoot?"
"Hurry!" commanded Mr. Kincaid.
When the last decoy was out, he thrust the boat hastily into the thick
reeds where already a blind had been constructed quite simply by
thickening the natural growth. "Crouch down!" whispered Mr. Kincaid;
"and don't move a muscle!"
Bobby crouched, drawing his head between his shoulders like a
mud-turtle. Curly crouched too. Above and around was the continued
whistle of wings as the wildfowl, with their strange, early-morning
persistence, insisted on returning to the spot whence they had been so
lately disturbed. A movement shook the boat as Mr. Kincaid arose to his
feet.
_Bang! Bang!_ spoke both barrels of the ten-gauge.
"Two," said Mr. Kincaid in his natural voice.
"Kneel around to face the decoys, Bobby, and you can see. But when I say
'mark,' don't move by a hair's breadth."
Bobby shifted position and found that he could see quite easily through
the interstices of the reeds. On the pond, silvered bright by the
increasing day, the decoys floated snugly. Even at close range Bobby was
surprised at their life-like appearance. Among them floated two ducks,
white bellies to the sky. This was all Bobby had time to observe for the
moment.
"Mark!" warned Mr. Kincaid behind him.
A tremendous tenseness fell on the world. Bobby's muscles stiffened to
the point of aching. The limited vista bounded on right and left by the
sidewise movement of his eyeballs, and above by the brim of his cap
contained nothing. He did not dare extend this vista by so much as one
inch. But in the air sounded that magic soul-stirring whistle of wings,
now gaining in volume until it seemed overhead; now fading until Bobby
thought surely the ducks must have become suspicious and left.
And then, low to the reeds across the pond, a long deliberate flight of
black bodies against the sky came into sight at the left, slanted across
the field of his vision and disappeared to the right. Their wings were
set, and every instant Bobby expected to hear the splash of water that
should indicate their alighting. But Mr. Kincaid's figure held its
immobility. He knew that the wily old mallards were not yet satisfied.
Indeed at the last moment, instead of swinging in, they arose with a
sudden swift effort, and resumed the slow scrutinizing circle about the
pond.
Bobby lived an eternity in the next few moments. His neck muscles grew
stiff; his eyeballs strained from a constant attempt to see farther to
one side than nature had intended him to see. Each circle he followed
visually as far as he could, and then aurally, his hopes arising and
falling as the whistling of the wings sounded near or far. And each
circle was lower than its predecessor, until at last the flight swung
scarcely twenty feet above the tops of the reeds.
Then, quite unexpectedly to Bobby, and when at its farthest from the
blind, the flock turned in and headed directly for him, its wings set.
Bobby caught his breath, and his heart commenced to thump violently. Not
a bird of them all seemed to move, and yet with the rush of a railroad
train each individual grew in size like magic. It was just like
coasting--the same breathless headlong feeling--that quivering avalanche
of ducks projected at his head so abruptly and so swiftly that he hardly
had time to wink. Nearer and nearer they came, larger and larger they
grew. Something inside him seemed to expand like a bubble with their
approach; like a bubble too rapidly blown, so that at once, without
warning, the bursting point seemed to be reached. Instinctively Bobby
shrank back. The moment of collision was imminent. Nothing could stop
this headlong flight of living arrows launched against his very face.
And then, in a flash, the appearance of the flock changed. As though at
a preconcerted signal each duck dropped his legs, threw back his head,
opposed to momentum the breadth of his wings and tail. An indescribable
and sudden rushing sound smote the air. The flock, its course arrested,
hung motionless above the decoys in the attitude of alighting.
At this precise instant Mr. Kincaid, without haste, smoothly got to his
feet. Involuntarily Bobby arose also. Curly, who up to this instant had
even kept his yellow eyes closed, put his forepaws on the gunwale, and
craned his neck upward the better to see.
Immediately with a mighty beating of wings the ducks "towered." It was
almost incredible, the rapidity with which, from a dead stand, they
broke into the swiftest flight--and straight up. Bobby could see them
plainly, in every detail, the beautiful iridescent green heads of the
drakes, stretched eagerly upward, the dove and the cinnamon of the
breasts, the white bellies snowy against the sky. The gun spoke twice.
Instantly three of the outstretched necks seemed to wilt. For a brief
moment the bodies hung in the air; then plunged downward with increasing
speed until they hit with an inspiring _splash, splash, splash!_ that
threw the water high. There they floated belly up. The orange-coloured
leg of one kicked slowly twice.
"Mallard!" said Mr. Kincaid with satisfaction.
Curly looked inquiringly at his master, then dropped back to his former
position in the bottom of the boat. Bobby settled himself on his
shell-box----
Swish!----he peered out startled and there among the decoys swam a dozen
little ducks, their heads up, their brights eyes glancing suspiciously
from one to another of their stolid wooden relations. Before Bobby could
realize that they were there, they had made up their minds; and, with
the same abruptness that had characterized their arrival, sprang into
the air and departed. Not, however, before Mr. Kincaid had shot.
"Only one," said he. "They're a lively proposition."
"What are they?" asked Bobby.
"Teal. They often fly low just over the marsh, and drop in unexpectedly
like that."
Daylight was full and broad now; and the sun was rising. With it came
the first signs of wind. Ducks filled the air in all directions, some
circling about other ponds; others winging their way in long flights
toward distant feeding grounds. Every few moments Mr. Kincaid had a shot
as some of these dropped to the decoys. Sometimes they came down boldly
in an attempt to alight; at others they merely stooped, and flew by.
These offered difficult side shots at long range. Always the mallards
made their wide circles of inspection; but always Mr. Kincaid waited
patiently for them, ignoring absolutely other ducks that in the meantime
lit among the decoys. Big flocks of teal manoeuvred back and forth
erratically like blackbirds, wheeling, turning, rising and darting
without apparent reason but as though at the word of command. The high
buzz of their wings was quite different from the whistling flight of the
larger ducks. One of these bands came within range, but without
attempting to alight. Into the compact formation Mr. Kincaid emptied
both barrels. Instantly the air seemed to Bobby full of ducks falling.
They hit the water like huge rain drops. Bobby could not begin to keep
count; but Mr. Kincaid said nine. Among them was a broken-winged
cripple, which at once began to swim toward the rushes on the other side
the pond.
"Fetch, Curly!" commanded Mr. Kincaid.
Curly, with a whimper of delight, plunged into the icy water, and with
astonishing speed overtook and seized the wounded duck. He returned
proudly carrying his prize; was handed in over the gunwale; shook
himself like a lawn sprinkler; and resettled himself in the bottom of
the boat. Curly was a quiet and reserved character. His specialty was
lying still, and swimming after ducks. The rest of life did not interest
him.
Now little by little the flight slackened. Longer intervals ensued
between the visits to the decoys. The sky was occasionally quite clear
of ducks, so that for a few moments Mr. Kincaid and Bobby would rise to
stretch their legs. Always they kept a sharp lookout in all directions,
and at the first sight of game, even so far away in the sky it looked
like a flock of specks, they would drop down into concealment. This was
something Bobby could do; and he was always overjoyed when he caught
sight of the ducks first; and could say "mark east"--or west or whatever
it was--as Mr. Kincaid taught him.
Sometimes the ducks passed far away; but again the direction of their
flight brought them within hearing distance of the blind. Then Mr.
Kincaid produced his duck-call, and uttered through it the most natural
duck sounds.
"Quack!" it said sharply, and then after the briefest possible pause.
"Quok-quok-quok-quok-quok!" in increasing rapidity. It was quite
remarkable to observe how the flock, apparently with a fixed destination
of its own, would hesitate, waver, finally swing down to investigate. At
this, Mr. Kincaid's call became confidential and intimate. It uttered
all sorts of clucks and half-notes, telling, probably, of the manifold
advantages of feed and shelter offered by this particular pond. Then
came the slow circles ending with the final breathless, level-winged
rush.
But presently, as the sun mounted higher and higher, even these flights
ceased. Mr. Kincaid lit his pipe. Curly made trip after trip, carrying
in the game.
"Fun?" enquired Mr. Kincaid succinctly.
"I should think so!" breathed Bobby with rapture.
They sat opposite each other in the sociable silence that seemed to come
so easily to them. The wind had risen again, until now it had once more
attained the proportions of a respectable gale. Bobby liked to watch the
brisk puffs as they hit, spread in a fan-shaped ruffle of dark water and
skittered away. In the miniature wavelets possible under the lea, the
decoys bobbed gravely, swinging to their anchor strings. The sun flashed
from their backs, and from the little waves. All about were the tall
stalks of reeds; and ahead, where the open water was, grew tufts of
grasses that looked silvery-brown and somehow intimate when, as now,
Bobby looked at them from their own plane of elevation. They waved and
bent before the wind, and the reeds across the pond bowed and recovered;
and over the low, flat landscape seemed to hover a brown, untamed spirit
of wildness.
But, though the wind blew a gale, the duck-boat was so snugly hidden
that hardly a breath reached its occupants. The warm rays of the sun
shone full down upon them, first driving the early chill from Bobby's
bones, then making him sleepy. He fell into a delicious lethargy,
running over drowsily the small details of his immediate surroundings.
In the course of a few hours this cosy nest which he had never seen
before had become strangely familiar. He experienced a sense of personal
acquaintanceship with many of the individual reeds; he recognized, as
one recognizes an accustomed landscape, the angle at which certain
clumps crossed one another; or the vistas allowed by the different
interstices. A marsh wren had business among the galleries. Bobby
watched it hop in and out of sight, sometimes right side up, sometimes
upside down. A dozen times he thought it had gone; but always it came
back, flirting its absurd short tail, one bright eye fixed on the
occupants of the blind. When Bobby slipped still further into the warm
bright land of laziness, he abandoned even the effort of observation,
and amused himself by sifting rainbows through his eye-lashes.
"Bobby!" whispered Mr. Kincaid sharply.
He came to with a start, rapping his knee against the gunwale of the
boat. Mr. Kincaid held his hand up warningly, then pointed toward the
decoys. Bobby looked, and saw, preening its feathers calmly, a live duck
rising to the wavelets. Mr. Kincaid handed over two 22-short cartridges.
Bobby's breath caught with a gasp. His fingers trembling, he opened the
breach of the Flobert and loaded; then cautiously thrusting the muzzle
through an opening in the reeds, tried to aim. But his heart was
thumping like a hammer, and do his best he could not hold the wavering
sights in alignment. In vain he recalled all the many principles of
accurate shooting he had so laboriously acquired in his target practice.
Finally in desperation he pulled the trigger. The duck, with a startled
quack, sprang into the air.
"Got one!" chuckled Mr. Kincaid. "That furtherest decoy," he replied to
Bobby's unspoken question. "Saw the splinters fly. Must have over-shot
three feet."
Bobby, carrying with him the bitterest possible cud of failure, retired
within himself and gloomed angrily at the situation from all points of
view. He was completely out of conceit with himself. After he had
finished his performance, he naturally took to reviewing it and
recasting it in terms of success. If he'd only shot at first, before he
lost his breath! If he'd only remembered to get his hand away around the
grip of the rifle! If he'd only----
As though to test these theories, the Red Gods at this moment vouchsafed
him a wonderful favour. As he frowned steadily between the reeds, his
attention was dragged by a moving object from its abstractions to that
which he gazed on so unseeingly. He came to alertness with a snap. A
duck flying not a foot above the water swung in an awkward circle and
lit with a long furrowing splash not forty feet away.
Bobby glanced toward Mr. Kincaid. The latter was gazing at the sky, his
hands clasped behind his head. Cautiously Bobby reloaded with the other
cartridge, and again thrust the rifle muzzle between the reeds. His
entire mind was now occupied by a vengeful spirit against himself
because of his first miss. Therefore he had no room for
self-consciousness or nervousness. The sights aligned with precision,
and held rigidly on the mark. His teeth set, Bobby pulled the trigger.
Instantly the duck fell on its side, and, beating the water frantically
with its wings, began to kick around in a circle.
"I got him! I got him! Oh, he'll get away!" screeched Bobby in a breath.
At the crack of the rifle Mr. Kincaid had leaped to his feet with
surprising agility.
"Well, good boy!" he exclaimed, "I should say you did get him! He won't
get away; he's hit in the head."
"Is that the way they act when they're hit in the head?" asked Bobby,
still doubtful.
"Yes. Fetch him, Curly."
Bobby took the duck from Curly's mouth and held him up by the bill to
drain the water, just as he had seen Mr. Kincaid do. Then he laid his
prize across the bow and gloated.
It was a very beautiful duck, with an erect topknot of white edged with
black running over the top of its head like the plume of a Grecian
helmet. The sides of its white breast were covered with feathers of a
bright cinnamon tipped with gray; its back was black and gray with fine
black edgings; and its wings were dark with a white and iridescent band
on each. But what interested Bobby especially was its bill. This
differed entirely from the bills of all the other ducks. It was very
long and very slender and had teeth!
"What kind is it?" asked Bobby looking up to encounter Mr. Kincaid's
amused gaze.
"Well--it's called a merganser in the books," said Mr. Kincaid.
"I'm going to have mama cook it," announced Bobby, and returned to his
blissful contemplation.
Mr. Kincaid grinned quietly to himself. He would not spoil the little
boy's pleasure by telling him that his first trophy was a fish-duck,
and, beautiful as it was, utterly useless.
No more ducks came for a long time after that. The wind continued to
increase, blowing from a clear sky, without scuds. By and by Mr. Kincaid
produced a package of lunch, and they ate, drinking in turn from the
demijohn that Bobby had filled the night before. The sun swung up
overhead, and down the westward slope. With the advance of afternoon
came more, but scattered, ducks rushing down the wind at railroad speed,
to wheel sometimes into the teeth of it like yachts rounding to as they
caught sight of the decoys. When the sun was low and red, thousands of
blackbirds began to fly by in an unbroken succession, low to the reeds,
uttering their chattering and liquid calls. So numerous were they that
the entire outlook seemed filled with the crossing lines of their
flight, until Bobby's eyes were bewildered, and he could not tell
whether he saw blackbirds near at hand or ducks farther away. Whence
they had come or whither they were going he could not guess; but that
they had some definite objective he could not doubt. Out from the gray
distances of the east they appeared; laboured by against the gale; and
disappeared into the red distances of the west.
Now the evening flight of ducks was on in earnest, and the warm
excitement of decoy-shooting again gripped hard all three occupants of
the boat. Over the wide marshes spread the brief crimson of evening. The
sun set and dusk came on. It was first indicated, even before a
perceptible diminution of daylight, by the vivid flashes from the gun.
Then the low western horizon turned to a dark band between sky and
water, and the heavens immediately above took on a pale green lucence of
infinite depth.
"More wind," said Mr. Kincaid, glancing at it.
Finally, although it was still possible plainly to see the incoming
ducks against the sky, Mr. Kincaid laid aside his gun and picked up the
punt-pole.
"Mustn't shoot much after sun-down," he told Bobby. "If we do, there
won't be any here in the morning. Nothing drives the duck off the
marshes quicker than evening shooting."
He pushed the duck-boat out into the open. Instantly the weight of the
wind became evident. Although on the lea side of the pond, the light
boat drifted forward rapidly; and Bobby had to snatch suddenly for his
cap. Mr. Kincaid snubbed her at the edge of the flock of decoys.
"Pick 'em up, Bobby," said he. "You'll have to do it, while I hold the
boat."
Bobby lifted the nearest decoy out of the water and, under direction,
wound the anchor line around its neck and stowed it away. This was easy.
Also the next and the next.
But by the time he had lifted the tenth he had discovered a number of
things. That a wooden decoy is heavy to lift at arm's length over the
gunwale; that it brings with it considerable water; that the anchor
lines carry with them a surprisingly greater quantity of water; that the
water is very cold; that said cold water causes the flesh to puff up,
the hands to turn numb, and the fingers to ache. This was disagreeable;
and Bobby had not been in the habit of continuing to do things after
they had become disagreeable.
"My, but this is awful cold work!" said he.
Mr. Kincaid looked at him.
"You aren't going to quit, are you?" he asked.
Bobby had not thought of it with this definiteness.
When the issue was thus squarely presented to him, his reply of course,
was in the negative. But the night got darker and darker; the decoys
heavier and heavier; the water colder and colder. Little by little the
glory of the day was draining away. Mr. Kincaid, leaning strongly
against the punt-pole, watched him for some time in silence.
"Pretty hard work?" he enquired at last.
"Yes, sir," said Bobby miserably.
"Why is it hard?"
Bobby looked up in surprise.
"Because the water is so cold, and the decoys are hard to lift over the
edge," he answered presently.
"No; it's not that," said Mr. Kincaid, "It's because you're thinking
about how many more there are to do."
Bobby stopped work in the interest of this idea.
"If you're going to be a hunter--or anything else"--went on Mr. Kincaid
after a moment, "you're going to have lots of cold work, and hard work
and disagreeable work to do--things that you can't finish in a minute,
either, but that may last all day--or all the week. And you'll have to
do it. If you get to thinking of how long it's going to take, you'll
find that you will have a tough time, and that probably it won't be done
very well, either. Don't think of how much there is still to do; think
of how much you have done. Then it'll surprise you how soon it will be
finished."
"Yes, sir," said Bobby.