A DUCK HUNT IN KANSAS
Cedar Vale, Kans., Nov. 18, 1906.
Dear Trotwood: I have read your Christmas goose hunt and think it great. Let me take you a duck hunt in this territory, the land of the Osages, the richest tribe in America. Their pasture lands lie some fifteen miles to the south, and extend for forty to fifty miles to the south and west of here, a vast tract of rich grazing land settled along the larger streams. Beaver Creek heads in the state and flows in a general direction nearly south. Salt Creek, some eight or ten miles east of Beaver, also flows nearly south. In order to secure a supply of water for their herds of Texas cattle, the cattlemen that hold leases on the grass land between the two creeks have constructed ponds, or tanks, in the heads of the draws and ravines that start off in either direction, and carry the surplus water of early spring. By throwing up a bank of earth across a draw near its head a pond from 150 to 200 yards in length and from 50 to 75 yards wide and eight to ten feet deep is secured, and this usually lasts the year round.
In the spring and latter part of our winter the ducks, and sometimes geese, stop for several weeks to pick up corn after the cattle that are fed along the creeks, and it is then that the ducks use these ponds as a roosting place. Situated, as they are, five or six miles from any human habitation, back on a high prairie, not even a bush or tree in sight, the lay of the country sloping to the east and west, the ducks appear to think they have found a safe retreat from the merciless hunter. Not so, however. It is here that the pot-shot hunter is in his glory. Sometimes, in early spring, just after a northwester has blown itself out, and we get a few warm days, I have seen these ponds full of ducks; yes, and sitting out in the grass on each side for a good hundred yards in each direction. It was just such a time as this, during the first days of March, 1903, that I and my good Swede friend, Norling, found ourselves camped about a mile below one of the tanks in a small draw that ran off in the direction of Beaver Creek. We had selected this particular pond for our night’s sport because we knew that a bunch of some 2,000 head of cattle was being fed over on Beaver about five miles away, and then we had stopped at the pond before going into camp to see if there were any signs. It did not require an old hunter to see the signs there. The damp ground around the edge of the pond was strewn with loose feathers and stamped and patted where the ducks had roosted along the water’s edge until it looked like the floor of a large poultry yard.
The sun had just set and there was a bank of red in the west, the wind was coming in little gusts from the north and the night promised to be clear. The moon would be up in about an hour.
“There they come,” said Norling, in a low voice, and then, just across the narrow draw, a bunch of a dozen or so passed, flying close to the ground and headed straight for the pond. It was still light enough to see them when they reached the pond. They did not circle, as is usual with ducks about to light, but raised slightly just before reaching the pond, and then, poised for a second, appeared to drop in, and so still was the evening and the wind blowing from the pond toward us, we could hear the water splash as they struck it.
So intensely had our interest been fixed on the first bunch we had not noticed others that were coming. Scarcely had the first ones settled before another flock began to drop in, and now they seemed to be coming in a steady stream. There was a continuous splash, splash, splash, as one after another they settled in the water. For at least an hour they came in this way.
“By Jimminy, George, I believe already there is so many in there as we could with us home take! Let us see how many we could rake down for the first shots,” said Norling. The moon was up now and cast a dark shadow from one side to the other of the draw. Taking a piece of white chalk from my pocket I drew a heavy white line between the barrels of my gun from sight to sight.
“What is that for?” asked Norling.
“Well, you see, if you are aiming too high you see a long white mark, if too low you cannot see it at all, and when just right you only see a small white spot, and when shooting by moonlight this enables you to shoot with a good deal of accuracy,” I replied.
“Come on, now, and be careful. A step in this dry grass would make noise enough to send every duck out of that pond. Follow this cow path and keep down low so they won’t see your head over the dump. The pond is nearly full of water.”
We were nearly half way, now, and it would not do to talk, not even to whisper, as a duck has very sharp hearing. The sharp whistle call of the sprig tail seemed to nearly drown the quack, quack of the mallard, and the splash, splash of the water against the dam told us we had but a few yards farther to go. At the foot of the dam we crawled on hands and knees until by stepping to our feet our heads and shoulders were above the dump. And then such a sight! The slight noise we made as we rose to our feet caused every duck in the water and on the banks to turn in our direction, and the rays of the moon fell on their white breasts and was reflected back here and there by an open patch of water. But only for an instant did this scene remain. Just one quick glance and then our guns came to our shoulders, a long white streak, then a small white dot in line with a thousand white breasts, a flash and a sharp report, followed by the greatest quacking, splashing and whirr of wings I had ever heard. So great was the noise made by the immense flock taking wing that I could not hear the report of the second barrel of my own gun. A few more shots were fired at crippled ducks that were still able to swim, a short wait for the wind to drift the dead ones to the bank, and then we picked up thirty-one dead ducks, all stopped by our first four shots. Sport and meat enough for one night?
Just write me a line a few days before you come and I will meet you at the train; and, by the way, I have some colts three years old by The Peacher, 2.17¼, pacing at two years old, and by the summaries the best sire of the season owned in Kansas. These colts are out of mares by Bertran, 2.20, and Capitalist, 2.29½, and they can step some, too. Better come about the 10th of March.
Yours truly,
George Beuoy.