He grunted doubtfully. “Wal, I think I was sixteen an’ about as hefty
a lad as ever plowed a furrer. Lemme see; I was either sixteen or it
was the year my daddy was the proud father of his sixteenth child, I’ve
forgotten which; but I had to work like an ox all week plowin’ in the
new ground an’ gettin’ out stumps an’ all that, an’ if there was a boy
or man in that settlement that could beat me breakin’ in a colt or hold
a hand with me in a wrestlin’ match, I don’t remember it jis’ now. We
had one holiday an’ that was Sunday afternoons, which we spent mostly in
breakin’ in of colts. Wal, one Sunday we struck the meanest-tempered colt
that ever come down the pike. He flung Bill, an’ he flung Jim, an’ then
he flung the old man hisse’f. They was all older than me, of course, an’
when he flung the old man it made him bilin’ hot an’ he sez: ‘Dam sech a
colt es that! I’ll give ennybody a dollar that will stay on his back a
minnit!’
“Then I up an’ sez to the old man: ‘Pap, do you mean that?’
“‘I do,’ sez he, most emphatically.
“‘Then,’ sez I, ‘that dollar is mine.’
“Now, in them days colts wan’t broke till they was fo’ years old, an’
this particular colt had been raised with the mules in the cane bottoms.
I got Bill to hold him with a twister till I got on, an’ they turned him
loose. He give three buckjumps, one right after the other, but I had
locked my long legs around him, and he might as well have tried to throw
off the saddle. When he saw he couldn’t fling me he bolted an’ took up
the pike like wild. He run under trees an’ through bushes, he jumped rock
fences, he scraped trees and jumped ditches, an’ I let him go. He run up
the road five miles to Blivens’ mill, then he got skeered at a goat in
the road, bolted ag’in and run back home. I calk’lated he run jes’ ten
miles back to the barn lot he started frum, an’ when he cleared the last
fence I turned loose my grip an’ turned a summerset over his head in ten
yards of whar we started. I was sorter dazed at first, but when I came to
the old man was standin’ over me sorter smilin’ an’ he sed: ‘Hiram, my
son, here’s yo’ dollar; you’ve been on just a minnit!’”
* * * * *
It was nearly midnight when the big lamps were lighted. They were placed
on the prow of the canoe, so that their rays crossed in the river, each
lamp lighting its opposite side. I knew that the old hunter knew every
shoal and log in the river and that no man could guide a boat or shoot
quicker or more accurately than John Jackson. So I had no fears of
capsizing, and when I took my Ithaca and sat down behind the lights, I
was in such a glow of excitement that I did not need my overcoat. And
that excitement never left me. The boat glided out and a weird and yet
fascinating scene presented itself. We sat in midnight darkness, but for
fifty yards ahead of us the river was bright with the glare of the big
reflectors. It penetrated the woods on either side and I felt something
awesome in the feeling that we were uncovering the hidden secrets of
nature, peering into the midnight heart, laying bare her shrouded woods
and dark waters and stabbing her silence and her solitude with a knife of
light.
Not a word was to be spoken. Everything went by a code of signals. If
Jackson put out his right hand, the boat moved to the right—his left
hand, to the left. One’s heart beats fast and the blood runs hot, for as
he peers into the midnight darkness and sees the white light creeping
over the woods and the waters, he expects every minute to see the
graceful necks and white outspread banners of a flock of geese fall into
its penetrating circle.
There was a splash in the water to the left. It was a beaver. A swift
object moved across the prow of the canoe, cutting the water into ripples
as it hurried to the shore. It was a muskrat. A half mile farther I
almost laughed out at the queer antics of Br’er Coon when the big lights
caught him square in the eyes as he sat fishing for earth worms on the
bank. He blinked, and winked, and turned his head in a quizzical way as
if wondering what that animal with the sun-eyes was floating down the
stream. We left him standing on the bank winking, and blinking, and too
worthless for us to startle our game with an unnecessary report.
It is the unexpected, of course, that happens, and it came a half-mile
farther down and out the top of a dead tree lying in the river. They
arose with a whirr and whistle of wings and clatter, almost under our
prow, that I scarcely had time to prepare. Besides, in the light they
appeared pure white and of great size. Instead of flying away they flew
straight at our lights, for they were blinded, and the Old Hunter said
I dodged to keep from being hit. Anyway, I managed to fire once as they
passed over me. Then I heard the old man’s gun roar in my ears and two
big mallards fell almost in our boat.
“Did I hit anything?” I asked him.
He laughed.
“You shot all the tail feathers out of the duck I killed!” he said.
“Phe—w—! listen! Throw the oil cloth over the lights,” he whispered.
I did, and we sat in the middle of the river in pitch darkness. Our shots
had flushed a big flock of geese. They made a tremendous clatter as they
arose from the waters, not two hundred yards ahead of us. They were
flying wildly about down the river.
“That’s unlucky,” said the old hunter. “In a few minutes we would have
had them.”
It was an hour before we had them again—at least twenty beautiful fellows
that flashed into our circle of light. The sight of a flock of geese on
the water at night is the most beautiful and thrilling sight I ever saw.
In the air they are long-necked, awkward things, but in the water they
are the personification of grace and beauty. They ride the waves like a
swan, their necks grandly arched and the big band of white under their
tails is raised and spread like a white banner in the light. At sight of
these not a word was said, as the old hunter moved silently up to them
and began the process called huddling them. It took us five minutes to do
this, and all the time I sat with my gun on them and my heart thumping
like a racer’s in the back stretch. At last three heads crossed in a
line. I saw Jackson’s gun in front of me leap to his shoulder, and I
fired. They arose with konks and screams and for half a minute every gun
turned on them in the air. Then silence and darkness, for the suction of
the discharges had put out our lights... And then!—well, we merely fell
out of the canoe! for just in the shadow of our lights a flock arose with
a noise and splash that set the boat rocking on the waves.
“Bad luck again,” said the old hunter, as he rowed up to and picked up
the eight beauties. “We run into the sentry. We’d killed a dozen if we’d
only waited.”
“Yes,” I said, while a thrill of genuine sportsman joy tingled me to the
fingers; “but one doesn’t want to be a hog! This is enough for one night.
Let’s go back to camp.”