Tales of a Vanishing River

by Earl H. Reed

In addition to a big bunch of wooden decoys that floated in an open space near the edge of the point, the wary birds were lured by mechanical quacks and honks from small patented devices, operated by their concealed enemies.

Notwithstanding their civilized garb, and highly developed weapons, Tip and Bill were barbarians. Their instincts were lower than those of the carnivora of the jungle, for they killed not for food, or even for profit, but for the joy of the killing. They did not bother about the wounded birds that curved away and fluttered into the matted grasses and rushes, to suffer in silence, or be eaten by the big snapping turtles that had no ideas of sport. They exulted over piles of beautiful feathered creatures, motionless and splashed with blood, many of which were afterwards thrown away.

Tip had devoted many of his idle hours to the invention of a new goose call. The range of the ordinary devices seemed to him too restricted. His theory was that if the volume of sound could be increased so as to fill a radius of four or five miles, the distant V shaped flocks could be lured to within gun shot of the point.

After long meditation, and consultation with Bill Wirrick, they began putting the plan into execution.

They procured a pair of blacksmith’s bellows from a distant country town, and some big instruments that had once belonged to the local brass band. These things, in addition to some rubber garden hose, and a lot of other miscellaneous material, were carefully covered in a wagon and secretly conveyed to the point.

Weeks were spent in the construction of the apparatus. The brass instruments were arranged in the interior of a huge megaphone. Rubber balls bobbed about intermittently within the capacious horns when the air was pumped through them. The requisite volume of sound was attained, but somehow the turbulent honks of the wild geese were not satisfactorily imitated, although repeated adjustment and alteration gave much hope of success.

The experiments were conducted cautiously during the summer, when there was nobody on the marsh, and no mention of the contrivance was made around the store, for a cruel gauntlet of jibes and merciless humor awaited the nonsuccess of the enterprise, if the wiseacres of the platform ever learned of it.

Rat Hyatt, although much interested in all that pertained to the marsh, and its surroundings, had never suspected what was going on on the point. He never had occasion to land there, and, by common consent, its possession by Posey and Wirrick for shooting purposes was respected by the few hunters who frequented the vicinity.

Malindy Taylor had sometimes heard some terrible noises from the direction of the point, but she was too far away to be much disturbed. Both Posey and Wirrick had often referred to Malindy as “an old fuss-bug,” although she was much younger than either of them, and they probably would not have cared if they had scared her out of the country, but she had little curiosity about things that did not affect her duck farm.

She and her mother had concluded that the uncanny sounds were produced by donkeys in the woods, and doubtless this was also the opinion of most of those who afterwards learned all of the facts.