“They will soon be killed off.”
“No, sir; as there is no shooting allowed in the spring they are becoming more plentiful. They are tamer, too; and some stay here all summer and breed. It was the spring shooting, when they were poor and thin, that killed them off or drove them away.”
“How many birds can a good shot average daily the season through?”
“I think I can kill forty a day, but perhaps there are some men who can shoot better. But now, sir, if you will choose your stand, I will go a little way below.”
I ensconced myself in a bunch of high weeds surrounded by a pond of open water, and killed a few mallards. The birds did not fly well, however, and we moved from place to place in the hope of better luck, and with a restlessness that showed increasing dissatisfaction on the part of Henry; so that I was not surprised when, early in the afternoon, he told me that he must return to the club-house. I remained for some hours where he left me; but hearing rapid shooting near the Gap, I poled my way there through a broad field of lilies, known as the Pond Lily Channel, and there, to my surprise, found Henry.
Whether it was the desire to be alone, for his peculiarity of preferring to shoot by himself has been mentioned, or whether he was tempted by a favorable flight of birds, I never knew; when I appeared, he paddled hastily away as though ashamed, and made no answer to my inquiries as to what detained him, or how they could manage without him at the house. Unceremoniously occupying his place, I completed the evening, and the allotted hours of my stay, with some excellent shooting at flocks of mallards, widgeons, and blue-bills, that poured through the Gap in endless flights, till after dark.
Then, for the last time, I rowed through the darkness towards the well-known point; for the last time sat down at the groaning board which our kind-hearted landlady had furnished so liberally; played my last game with the euchre-loving son of Kentucky; smoked a farewell pipe of Killikinnick in the sociable circle around the air-tight; slept for the last time in the comfortable bed under the hospitable roof of the club-house; and next morning, having seen my associates depart, each in his little boat, and bid them all farewell, I set out, with my birds packed in ice, for the City of New York. My friends welcomed me and my birds gladly. Reader, had you been my friend, you would also have welcomed us both.
It is surprising how well the duck-shooting in the confluents of the great lakes has held out in spite of time and breech-loaders. Wild ducks, like tame ones, lay fifteen to twenty eggs, not like the English snipe, which rarely lays more than four. They go to inaccessible places to breed, and are so tough, strong, and active, that they can put their natural enemies almost at defiance. Spring shooting has been forbidden, and the result is that as many are now killed every fall as were killed twenty years ago.
