The report of my gun and the collapse of the bird came just a second before his.
He looked around astonished. “Pray forgive me,” I said. “I have acted the hog, but I was sure something was the matter with your gun.”
He laughed: “I was just waiting for it to get a little farther away.”
After that I shot them farther off, and by noon we had eleven beauties, filling up the front of our surrey, upon which my eye feasted in delight.
We decided we had enough, and towards evening we drove across the cooling, sweet grasses to a group of pretty little lakes or ponds in the hollow depression of the land. These we found literally covered with Spoonbills, Teal, Mallard and Red-heads, and then we had sport royal and of another kind. They were wary, though, very; and we had to crawl on our stomach for a quarter of a mile to get to them, Mr. Stone on the far side, to fire first and send them over me. And when his gun sounded once, twice, here they came toward me, I lying flat in the grass. I picked two big ones leading the flock, knowing if I didn’t get the kings I’d get the knights and pawns behind them. I didn’t get the king, but down tumbled a Red-head, a Mallard—one—two—three—four! Good heaven! Did I kill all of them? I saw smoke drifting across my left. Mr. Stone had turned his old Winchester repeater on them, also, and so I gave him credit for everything but the redhead, for I shot at him. This was our sport—from one lake to another, until we had shot enough, and the ride home across the starlit prairies and under the cool, bracing air of that boundless, glorious country.
Can you not see how two days of that kind of sport is worth all drunken yacht trips, and all the heart-breaking, dust-killing automobile rides in the world? You feel it bodily and spiritually for years, and remember it with pleasure all your life.
So here’s to the grand Dakotas and their hospitable people and their splendid birds!
The Philosopher reasons and says it cannot be done. The Doer tries and does.