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TTER-GUN SKETCHES —

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Swans at Currituck Sound,

North Carolina

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asnouds adaaanu

SCATTER-GUN
SKETCHES

By Horatio Bigelow

SPORT AMONG UPLAND GAME BIRDS AND
WATERFOWL WITH THE GUN

PUBLISHED BY

WILLIAM C,. HAZELTON
SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS

1922

Sangamo on Point, Dr. O. F. Maxon, Owner,

Springfield, III.

SPORT

BY DUNCAN ANDERSON

The canvasback a double zest affords,
And yields a dish to ‘‘set before a king,’’

And where the north-shore streams rush to the sea,
Here the rare harlequin shoots past on rapid wing.

To Grondine’s flats the ibis vet returns,
The snowy goose loves well the sedgy shore;
Loud booms the bittern ’midst the clustering reeds,
And the famed heron nests on pine-top as of vore.

The shady copse the wary woodeock haunts;

From Chauteau Richer’s swamps the snipe upsprings:
Tennessee’s fields know well the scurrying quail,

O’er the glassy lake the loon’s weird laughter rings.

Resplendent through the grove the turkey roams,
And lends a deeper grace to Christinas cheer ;
Our silvery lakes still claim the graceful swan;
And o’er the uplands shrill the plover’s pipe we hear.

DEDICATION

To
M. R. B.,
The ‘‘Home Camp’’ listener to these tales,
this volume is affectionately
dedicated. |

N

CONTENTS

OPENING Day SPs: ee
SHORE Brrp <n eee AND ieee
WoopcockK AND PARTRIDGE—CHURCH’s DOUBLE

A Mixep Bac aE Ie

RaIL SHOOTING ON Some chicne RIVER yon
Duck AND PLovER SHOOTING IN THE PACIFIC Nos est
ON THE HEADWATERS OF THE TUOLUMNE

WITH THE CONNECTICUT TROUT

Tue Bic Trout oF Deep River Brook

LD N THat Hawec” 2
Tue DUDE AND I BATTERY SThOTENG AT EP aait een Sauk
Roast GOOSE AND “FIxIN’s” AT PEA ISLAND

DEER HUNTING IN SOUTH CAROLINA

AMONG THE CAROLINA “HENS” AND “GOBBLERS”

Duck SHOOTING IN SoUTH CAROLINA RICE FIELDS

NO re
on our NI et

Books on hunting Wildfowl and Upland Game Birds.
published by W. C. Hazelton:

1916, Duck Shooting and Hunting Sere
1919, Ducking Days.

1921, Wildfowling Tales.

1922, Tales of Duck and Goose Shooting.
1922, Scatter-Gun Sketches,

Editions now exhausted of the first two volumes.

Chicago address, 407 Pontiae Bidg.

PREFACE

HEIN stern necessity and the cares of business
W bind and you can’t get away on that long-

anticipated shooting trip, how often can you
find relief from the ‘‘Call of the Wild’’ in reading how
some other hunter did get away and bagged his geese
and ducks, tramped the fields and covers after partridge
and woodcock, or called up and killed the fine fat gobbler?

When you are bound for the metropolis and the train
roars over the trestle crossing the slough in the marsh,
how often do you recall so vividly the red-letter day
when the black ducks and mallards were literally falling
over your gun barrels in that similar slough in the
Southland, or when you rattle by the little brook
trickling through the alder run, how often do you
picture to yourself the successful shot you made on
_ Mr. Longbill last October, as he was topping just such

a ‘‘lucky hole’’?

When gathered around the blazing camp-fire or hug-
cing tight the red-hot stove, how often have you heard
the ‘‘old timers’’ spin the yarns that linger with you,
still so strenuously alive, though their authors have long
since gone to the ‘‘Happy Hunting Grounds’’?

It is because of these things and also for the reason
that there is a great deal of satisfaction in setting down
some record of your various shoots that your children
may read that I have written these stories. They are
sketches of some of my own experiences during the last
few years and I have not delved too far into the past as
time often serves to dull the lustre of a sterling yarn.

Horatio BicELow.

CHARLESTON, SoutH CAROLINA.

AUTUMN’S LURE

J. S. WHIPPLE

Fleecy clouds across the heavens,
Autumn haze hangs round the hills,

Squirrels chatter in the tree-tops,
Sweetly sings the mountain rills.

Partridge drums in hazel thicket,
Calling, calling, to his mate;

Air is full of brown leaves falling,
Leaving tree-tops desolate.

Comes the deer from yonder thicket,
Where in hiding he has been,

Softly steps into the water,
Fearful—looking down the glen,

Head erect, ears keen for noises—
What a picture there he makes,

Standing, listening like a sentry,
But to vanish in the brakes.

Visions these of many Autumns
When the smoky haze comes down,

Shutting out the far horizon,
Shutting in the sleepy town.

Days so full of gorgeous glory,
Touching every field and hill,

Painting there the wondrous story
Of the Master’s hand and skill.

OPENING DAY

HOMPSON had often urged me to try a day’s

shoot with ‘‘Jim’’ Dennison and as October 1st

approached, he redoubled his entreaties. Finally
without any real thought of going I told him to make
arrangements with ‘‘Jim’’ for opening day. When the
day arrived my indifference had vanished and I was as
anxious as Thompson himself to get the motor started
and headed for Groton, Dennison’s home. Arrived at
our destination, we found that ‘‘Jim,’’ through some
misunderstanding, was not expecting us until the follow-
ing week and had departed on a house-painting job.
We were on his trail in short order and ‘‘ran him to
earth’’ working on Deacon Perkins’ barn. Said Denni-
son, ‘‘I promised the Deacon to finish his barn for him
this week, but it’s such a pretty day I guess I can come
along with yer for a few hours. Let’s go back to the
house so I can get my gun and coat.’’

Jim was soon ready, lifted the two dogs, ‘‘Nell,’’ an
old setter, and a young pointer named ‘‘Pete,’’ into the
tonneau, jumped in with them, and I headed the ear
for Centre Groton. We worked out two covers ‘‘en
route,’’ the first a huckleberry pasture bordering on the
old race track near Poquonoc, where a covey of quail
usually hung out, and the second an impenetrable tangle

2 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

of briars, wild-grape vines and stunted cedars along
the ‘‘Laurel Drive’’ where Br’er Partridge often made
his home. The dogs didn’t find a trace of game in the
pasture, but in the briar patch we heard an old partridge
roar up well ahead of us and ‘‘Pete,’’ who had rushed
headlong into the cover, came sneaking back with his
tail between his legs and looking very properly ashamed.
After an unsuccessful tramp hunting for more birds,
‘‘Jim’’ exclaimed, ‘‘Let’s leave, boys, that bird’s the
only one here. We’ll strike into that hazel patch of
Haley’s over on the Old Mystic road. A fellow from
New London killed seventeen woodcock there one after-
noon during the flight last year.’’

A short spin in the clear, frosty air and we were on
the ground. Thompson let down the bars and I ran
the car into the woods on the opposite side of the road
from the hazel patch. We left it there, out of sight of
passers-by as a matter of precaution, and invaded
Mr. Longbill’s domain. We had not gone far before I
heard a shot from Thompson and a minute later what
seemed to be a large brown bumblebee flopped through
the leaves and dropped into the cover just ahead of me.
I walked forward a few steps and flushed the woodecock
again. She was in sight for an instant only and then
dove through the red and brown hazel leaves. I thought
T had held about right when I pressed the trigger and
sure enough ‘‘Pete,’’ who had galloped into the brush
when I fired, came trotting proudly back with a fine fat
bird in his mouth.

OPENING DAY Pr:

‘‘Shank’s mare’’ was pretty well exercised before we
found another. This time Dennison flushed a woodcock
in a thick growth of birches. The bird, as it came to
the edge of the cover, soared up through the leaves of
a big oak and Dennison tried a shot at her with his
twenty gauge. She still kept on going and further
remonstrance from my twelve only quickened her flight.
We were unable to put her up again and went on. I
was well to the end of our line when a longbill rose on
my left. I swung around and had a nice straightaway
chance at him as he flew down the open over some low
brush. At the crack of the gun the woodcock dropped
in a cloud of feathers and we whistled in ‘‘Pete’’ to
retrieve. I thought I had marked the bird down but
neither ‘‘Nell’’ nor ‘‘Pete’’ could seem to find him.
We searched for about fifteen minutes till ‘‘Jim’’ said,
‘‘He probably wasn’t so far away as you thought.’’ I
turned around and started back towards where I had
been standing and had only taken a few steps when I
nearly stepped on the woodcock, lying on his back, stone
dead.

A few minutes afterwards I heard a shot from
Dennison and a woodeock flew right over my head from
behind. I waited till she dropped down and started
after her. She flushed wild and went up through the
tree-tops like a bat. When I finally had a second’s clear
view of her the bird certainly seemed small and I was
indeed pleased when she came rustling down through
the autumn foliage at my shot.

4 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

We were unable to find more woodecock in the hazel
patch and trudged along the wooded ridge adjoining to
start a partridge if possible. Dennison was telling me
about some of his shooting experiences when he was a
boy and game was plenty. Said he: ‘‘I was huntin’
with ‘Pop’ and two of his city friends. They started
a woodeock which flew in my direction and lit in some
low bushes in front of me. ‘Pop’ came over and hol-
lered, ‘Bud, where’s that cock?’ I was some excited
and when I pointed my gun into the brush where the
bird had gone I pulled the trigger. Nothing got up,
but the dog rushed in and came out presently with the
woodeock, dead, in his mouth. Pretty hard to beat that
shot, eh?’’

We got back to the car without finding a partridge,
and found old Haley and his son with another old fellow,
looking over the machine. Haley knew Dennison well
and seemed pleased to see him—also me when J pulled
a small flask out of my hip pocket. The old fellow
must have had an interior of cast-iron for the high-
proof whiskey kept trickling down his gullet until I
thought he would never stop. At last he reluctantly
withdrew the bottle from his lips and gave a long sigh
of satisfaction. ‘‘Come again,’’ he cried. ‘‘I’m always
glad to do anything for a friend of Jim’s. My boy and
I just come over to see who was doin’ the shootin’.
We found your car and were thinkin’ perhaps we’d
padlock it to a tree with an ox-chain, but it’s all right
now—shoot anywhere you mind to.’’ Haley and his boy
then waved us good-bye and started back to the little
red farmhouse just beyond the hazel patch.

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OPENING DAY 4)

‘*Jim’’ in the meantime, had been talking with the
other old fellow whose name was Haley also, and when
I backed the car out he whispered to me, ‘‘If we go
down the road a piece and take this farmer home, he
says he’ll let us shoot over his corn piece where he saw
a covey of quail early this morning.’’

We hustled Haley No. 2 home to his great delight.
Leaving him at the lane running up to his house, we
let down the bars and turned the car into the cornfield,
a foolish proceeding, as it proved, for the quail were
there indeed. The whole covey flushed with a ‘‘whir’’
of many wings and shot like so many bullets into the
briar patches that lined the field. ‘‘Pete’’ and ‘‘Nell’’
were out in an instant and we were right on their heels.
Dennison and Thompson followed the dogs, who were
galloping towards the cover into which the birds had
flown. I circled to the left with the idea of working
ahead with the others and perhaps getting a shot at
birds that flushed before them. On the further side of
the brush was a boggy meadow with tussocks of grass
and high blueberry bushes. A fine spot for the birds
to ‘‘lie close!’’ As I was balancing on one of the tus-
socks I heard two shots and three quail whizzed by me
as if the Old Nick himself were after them. I knew
when I pulled the trigger on the first that I was shooting
behind him, but I felt sure of the last bird. I was
doomed to disappointment, however, as all three kept
on till I marked them down in an impenetrable thicket of
of cat briars. Dennison came up, tucking a fat little

6 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

hen quail into his back pocket. He was certainly in his
element with ‘‘Bob White’’ and his twenty gauge as he
spent every winter ‘‘down South’’ breaking dogs and
‘‘shootin’ birds.’’ He had spotted two a short distance
from where we stood and when we flushed them his
was the only gun that spoke as the quail were right in
line with him and quickly gained the cover. That is,
one did; the other, well centred by the charge from the
little gun, tumbled into the grass for ‘‘ Pete’’ to bring in.

I was resolved to take toll from the three that had
escaped me, and so attacked the cat briars. They gave
me a most affectionate welcome as if to say, ‘‘Don’t be
in a hurry,’’ and I didn’t get away from them without
bearing sundry tokens of their esteem in the shape of
scratches. The quail didn’t wait for me and rose noisily
before I had thoroughly made good my onslaught on
their retreat. One small cock had the temerity to give
me a glimpse of him as he vanished into a pine tree
and he dropped dead on its further side as the result
of my ‘‘snap.”’

Breakfast had been an early one and the inner man
was clamoring for lunch, but as I came out to ‘‘Jim”’
in the meadow I heard the sweet whistle of first one
quail and then another out in the field. ‘‘Khloi-hee,
khloie-hee.’?’ The temptation was too strong for both of
us and we headed towards the whistle. The two birds
rose at the same instant and we each had a nice straight-
away chance and we each shot two barrels. ‘‘Did we
get them?’’

—

OPENING DAY 7

‘“ Ask ‘Jim’—he knows.”’

On our way back to the car and the grub pile we
passed through the cornfield where we first found the
quail. At the edge of the stubble our path took us by
some rows of onions and some melon vines but what
was more there were musk melons and watermelons on
the vines and they looked ripe. We felt sure Haley
would be pleased to have us sample them and started on
the musk melons. They were musky for sure and didn’t
seem very popular as one mouthful usually spelled
‘“fenough!’’ With the watermelons it was a different
story and it was lucky for us we didn’t meet Haley when
we headed the car for Groton for if he had any plans
as to the future of those melons our faces bore indisput-
able evidence as to their destruction.

SHORE BIRD SHOOTING—‘SUMMERS”
AND “WINTERS”

LARENCE LEONARD is a friend who has put
me next to some good shooting more than once,
so when I received the following letter from him

I felt sure results would follow. ‘‘Dear B.—Please try
to be at my house by 3 A. M., Tuesday next, the 15th.
IT have discovered a lot of birds haunted in a marsh
some twenty minutes’ drive with machine from here,
and they will probably make good shooting if we can
get there by daylight. If I don’t hear from you, shall
look for vou at my house Tuesday next at that time.’’

At 2:15 A. M. on the 15th, we grabbed guns, shells
and lunch, and Ray, Rip and the Scribe set sail for
Leonard’s.

Clarence was on deck with a market basket full cf
wooden ‘‘yaller-legs’’ and old Plum-centre, his trusty
L. C. Smith twelve gauge. A short tack to wind’ard
and we came to anchor in Uncle Lige Pratt’s yard down
Duxbury way. We meandered through a huckleberry
pasture, fell over and demolished a couple of stone
walls, located a dim and distant trail through the long,

wet grass of a deserted apple orchard, and fought
8

OPENING DAY 9

our way through blood-thirsty, war-whooping clouds of
mosquitoes defending a boggy wood lot, and we were on
the marsh. A hundred yards from the river was our
stand—a low circle of water bushes enclosing a log seat
and in the shallow, muddy pond in front of us Leonard
set out the stool head on to the fresh southwest breeze,
in two groups, one on either side.

Yellow-legs were calling all around us—‘‘summers’’
and ‘‘winters.’’ ‘‘More’n seventy ‘winters’ opened their
throats all at once,’’ as Clarence described one particu-
larly noisy demonstration from the east’ard. Little
pods of black ducks shot by speeding toward the mud
flats at the river mouth. They were probably counting
on an immunity bath till October 1, but a fusillade from
a stand across the river disillusioned them. Some
eunner couldn’t stand the strain.

‘“Whew! whew! whew!’’ And again, ‘‘Whew! whew!
whew!!’’ ‘‘Mark east, a ‘winter’!’’

The alluring strains of Leonard’s whistle turned the
bird our way, but it was still too dark to see our decoys,
or else the ‘‘yaller-leg’’ was of a nervous disposition,
for he swooped along the further shore of the pond,
and landed on a mud flat at the west end out of range.

Ray and Rip were anxious to stalk the bird, which
had now disappeared behind a tuft of grass, but Leonard
dissuaded them by saying they would probably lose some
goad shots if they left the stand.

Another ‘‘winter’’ and several ‘‘summer”’ yellow-legs
joined the pioneer at the end of the pond, and we had

10 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

literally to ‘‘hog-tie’’ the two boys to keep them from
starting an offensive.

Four ‘‘summers’’ of an exclusive face of mind pitched
camp in another puddle to the east’ard.

Bang! bang! bang! bang! The stand across the
river had opened hostilities, and one of our neighbors
from the east’ard decided to pay us a call. Ray and
Rip gave him a cordial welcome with four shots, and
the ‘‘summer’’ passed out, his long yellow legs giving
one last futile kick as he drifted down the pond on his
back.

As the sun rose, the birds began stirring, and for a
short while the fun was fast and furious. A few of
the ‘‘winters,’’ but mostly ‘‘summers,’’ were our visi-
tors. The former passed by unscathed, but several of
the latter stayed with us. Leonard was giving us a
chance to demonstrate our scatter-gun efficiency, and it
was a minus quality. Clarence himself had not yet un-
limbered ‘‘Plum-centre,’’ but his efforts on the little
whistle, whenever there was a bird in the air, brought
him swooping our way as if there was a piece of string
tied to him. The whistle was a piece of tin the size of
a silver dollar with a small hole in the middle over
which the tin was folded. With this contrivance between
his lips, the open side out, and the small hole against
his tongue, Clarence could talk ‘‘shore bird’’ with all
the migrating tribes. I have heard many eallers in
thirty years on the marshes, some with mechanical
whistles and others with their lips, but none could com-

SHORE BIRD SHOOTING i

pare with Leonard, and whenever they tried conclusions
with him the result was always the same, everybody else
occupied chairs in the dress-circle, while Leonard held
the stage with the birds.

During a lull in the flight, Ray and Rip stalked the
‘‘winters’’ at the west end of the pond, a futile attempt,
as the birds rose a long shot distant from the gunners,
and nothing resulted from the ensuing discharge.

I routed out the kodak and snapped a picture or two
of Leonard picking up the dead birds floating in the
pond—the results of our last shot, six down out of a
flock of seven ‘‘summers’’ that had come right into our
face and eyes in answer to the seductive call. Then he
squatted down in the stand while I tried a picture of
the layout.

IT heard the mellow note of a ‘‘summer’’ and stood
still while Clarence made a neat right and left. Re-
inforcements had arrived—‘‘ole Plum-centre’’ had now
opened up.

A little later, while we were all in the stand, a flock
of eight ‘‘summers’’ happened on the scene, and great
was the slaughter thereof. One survivor hustled off for
Duxbury—the reserves had proved too much for them.

After 8 o’clock the shooting fell off. We had over
thirty ‘‘summers’’ in the little pile under the grass in
the shadow of the stand, but no ‘‘winters.’’ The next
flurry was due to occur when the tide came up over the
marsh at 2. During the interval we killed several more
single ‘‘summers,’’ and missed two chances at single

12 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

‘‘winters.’? One of these big fellows came in from be-
hind us and was missed by both boys, while the other
flopped right into my face to escape both barrels. The
boys also burnt some powder when Leonard whistled
this last one back, but only served to accelerate his de-
parture for Duxbury.

As we were consuming the last crumb of lunch, a
single ‘‘summer’’ dropped in. Both boys fired, and the
bird fell. Up till now, Rip had claimed most of the
birds after each discharge, so Leonard thought he would
oet ahead of him. He ran out into the pond, picked up
the bird, and exclaimed, ‘‘ Anyway, I got that one!”’
Rip and Ray were so surprised that they could say
nothing.

A young fellow, a cousin of Leonard’s, who had been
shooting just across the river, came over to visit. He
told us that he and his brother had killed twenty-three
‘‘summers,’’ and that the two men in the stand beyond
them had sixty-one. He and Leonard decided that the
birds had changed their line of flight from the Duxbury
marsh so that instead of passing over us, they were
cutting across further to the southwest. To prove their
contention, we caught sight of first a pair, and then a
flock of nine ‘‘summers’’ following the river course.
The breeze had died away and Leonard’s whistle enticed
the pair and four of the nine yellow-legs our way. We
accounted for both the former and three of the latter.

Later on, three more followed the same route, and as
they whirled over the stool, Ray jumped to his feet and

SHORE BIRD SHOOTING 13

fired. One bird fell, but the combination of an extra
heavy load and the slippery mud on the floor of the
stand proved the youngster’s undoing and the salvation
of the other two birds. At the crack of the gun, the
boy came splashing back in a shower of mud, stumbled
over Ray and the Scribe, who were just going to un-
limber their fowling pieces, and all three of us came
down with such a thud in the mess below us that we
were some minutes getting free from the sticky mud.
Leonard and his cousin were laughing so heartily at
our mishap that they could not shoot, and so the other
yellow-legs escaped.

Leonard’s cousin left us and had barely reached his
boat on the river bank, before the tide, which had been
pouring into the eastern end of our pond, flooded the
marsh. A minute later Leonard whispered, ‘‘Look
there!’’

A quarter of a mile to the sou’west two large flocks
of ‘‘summers’’ were circling. At the call of the whistle
they joined forces, set their wings and swooped down
on our harmless decoys. We all emptied into their
serried ranks, and when they reformed and swung by
again, two barrels from each of us again took toll. The
air was full of feathers, the pond of dead and dying
vellow-legs, and the long marsh grass of cripples. Out
of the invading force of thirty birds, only four survivors
escaped.

We then ran out and started across the pond to
eather up the cripples before the tide carried them

14 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

off, then picked up the dead. While thus engaged, first
one, and then another single, remnants of the scattered
host, tried to spy out the battlefield, but a shot apiece
laid them low.

We now had fifty-eight ‘‘summer’’ yellow-legs in our
pile, our shells were spent and the flivver was straining
at her anchor. ‘All aboard!’’? now shouted Captain —
Leonard, and the rattle of the Peace Ship drowned all
sounds of our final discussion of summer shore bird
shooting.

WOODCOCK AND PARTRIDGE—
CHURCH’S DOUBLE

66 YELL, William, what’s the program today?’’
eried I as I stopped the machine at Church’s
door.

Church lifted his setter, Count, into the tonneau, slid
his Marlin repeater in afterwards, climbed into the
front seat beside me and said, ‘‘I guess we’ll start in
at the woodeock ground at the lake, then try the swamp
hole near Abell’s, hunt Powell’s lot and then the Packer
place and finish up at Ford’s swamp.”’

This seemed a good layout to me and in about ten
minutes we stopped at a pair of bars that let us into
the woodeock ground. Birches and maples with occa-
sional patches of laurel and high huckleberry bushes
formed the cover along the eastern shore of Gardner’s
Lake, and if the longbills were not there, we were quite
sure of finding one in the alder run nearby. We hunted
the south side of the ‘‘edge’’ without success, though
Count kept trying to work to the north of us. We
thought we’d see what interested him so much and let
him have his way, while we followed. Count made
game while Church and I got ready for business. Sud-

denly with twittering wings a woodcock flushed wild in
15

16 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

front of Church and he fired but missed as the bird was
nearly out of range. We marked the direction of his
flight and followed after but found nothing of him. As
we reached a woods-road near the bar-way we flushed a
partridge and saw where he went down a short ways
into the woods on the other side of the road. There
was a stone wall on the other side of the cover near
where we had marked the bird down, and I climbed
over into the open lot on the further side in hopes that
I would get a shot when the bird flushed. Church and
Count crossed the road and struck into the maples after
the game. In a few minutes William sang out, ‘‘I’ve
got a point!’’ and a second later I heard the partridge
get up. I stood watching and soon saw the bird ‘‘ going
some’’ through the tree-tops and nearly out of gun-shot.
I was afraid if I waited for him to cross an open space
in front of me that I would lose my chance, so I fired
through the maples. Mr. Partridge never changed his
course but kept straight on and would have given me
a fine shot in the opening, but he had crossed it before
I could get on him with my second barrel.

We turned back and looked for more woodecoek.
Count pointed on the edge of the birches and Church
walked in, flushing a longbill. The cover was so thick
that a shot was impossible, and we followed up the bird.
We were more successful this time than with the first
bird and Count soon came to a stiff point that showed
the woodcock was right under his nose. Church flushed
him, and the bird twisted through the trees ahead of me.

WITH WOODCOCK AND PARTRIDGE lf

I saw enough of him to get him over the end of my
oun, and he dropped like a wet rag. Count retrieved
and we circled to the right. Not a hundred yards away
we had another point. The dog stood, or rather he
squatted directly in front of me, his head turned slightly
to one side. I walked in, and was lucky enough to drop
woodeock No. 2, with much the same kind of a shot as
I had on the last one. Having quartered this section
pretty thoroughly, we swung around through the alder
run near the lake and then through the last corner of
the ‘‘birch edge’’ which we had not yet disturbed.
Chureh had hardly hied Count into the cover, when
another dog—a lemon and white pointer—burst out of
the bushes in front, and stood there looking at us for a
minute. Then a whistle sounded and the dog darted
back. An instant later we heard someone say, ‘‘There
used to be woodcock along this edge last year,’’ and the
pointer came into view again followed by Bob Congdon
of New London and another hunter. To their greeting
‘‘What luck?’’ I answered, ‘‘Not much; we flushed a
_ partridge over there,’’ as I pointed to the cover we had
been through and as they moved on I whispered to
Church, ‘‘Let’s leave, I think we have cleaned up this
piece.’’ In confirmation of the truth of this remark I
know that we didn’t hear a shot from the other party,
though Powell’s, our next objective, was only a short
mile distant.

On our way we stopped in at Abell’s to see if young
Elmer would join us, but his hunting license had run

18 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

out the day before so he could not go. However, I had
an extra gun in the car and turned it over to Thompson,
the chauffeur, to see if he could kill a bird.

Church took Count into the swamp hole opposite
Abell’s to try and find a partridge, while Thompson and
I stationed ourselves in the road between the swamp
hole and Powell’s. It was nearly a certainty that if
Church fiushed a bird it would go across the road, and
I waited in anticipation until finally Count scrambled
over the wall into the road and Church followed, saying,
‘‘Nothing doing.”’

We spread out going through Powell’s, Church taking
the thick cover with Count, Thompson the side hill on
his right, and I the edge on his left. Thompson was
the first one to shoot, once, twice, and then ealled
ed) n it! Had a fine shot at two partridges but
missed them. They’ve gone on up the hill. Are you
going to chase them up?’’

‘‘We certainly are,’’ cried I, and joined Church and
the dog in circling over towards Thompson and up that
side hill. After a short hunt we flushed one of the
birds and Thompson again missed another shot. The
partridge flew back again into the run we had quitted
and we kept after it. When Thompson missed a third
chance, I fired a barrel at the bird as it rose over the
tree-tops and headed for the swamp hole where Church
had drawn a blank. I could not seem to do any better
than Thompson as the old cock kept straight on and
Church called out, ‘‘I think it’s my turn.’? He went

WITH WOODCOCK AND PARTRIDGE 19

back with Count into the thickest of the cover and we
soon heard a shot.

‘“‘Did you get him?’’ I shouted.

‘Gol darn it! No,’’ said he, ‘‘I had a good sight
on him but put the charge into an old black maple.
He’s gone back into Powell’s.’’

Again we followed up that long suffering partridge
and at the edge of a clearing Count froze to a point
near a tuft of grass. We all stood ready for a fine
shot and Church walked in—to pick up the bird which
was lying stone dead, right under the dog’s nose. Some
of the charge had got by that black maple.

On our left lay a long stretch of alders, once a famous
woodecock ground, and nowadays often a resting place
for a few of the longbills. After conscientious search,
however, Count emerged from the lower end of the
cover without discovering a bird. We continued on our
way through ‘‘Powell’s,’’ skirting the edge of a thick
erowth of birch, maple, oak and chestnut timber.
Church, strolling ahead of me, was spinning yarns
about his hunting experiences with General Ely, a
famous old Norwich sportsman, who used to spend
much of the open season with William.

‘‘Yes, old Grouse, the General’s dog, had the finest
nose I ever saw. I’ve never seen such a partridge dog
before or since. He always seemed to get a point with-
out flushing—but then, there were birds those days and
you could get somewhere near them. Grouse started
in mighty wild. I remember one time the dog was with

20 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

me for a couple of weeks. I was then shooting for the
market pretty regular and gave old Grouse a few
lessons in steadiness that he needed. When the General
went out with him again he didn’t say much, but I
noticed he kept a careful eye on the dog. A few days
afterwards he sent me a check for ——.’’

‘‘Brrrr! brrrr!’’ and two partridges flushed at the
edge of the birches in front of Church and started for
cover. The old Marlin repeater came up like a flash
and at its sharp ‘‘crack’’ a cloud of feathers and a
thud in the dry leaves marked the end of the first bird,
a straightaway. Hardly had number one struck the
eround, when ‘‘crack’’ went the gun again, and this
time partridge number two, a left quarterer, was
literally bowled over, the light grey of its breast show-
ing as it dropped.

‘‘Gol darn it!’’ cried Church. ‘‘I’m awfully sorry I
took your shot. I could just as well have slipped out
of your way. I forgot myself, to tell you the truth,
and was thinking I was shooting for the market in the
old days. Of course in those times I had to make every
shot count.’’

I was standing close to William, who really seemed
quite conscience-stricken that he had not given me the
shot, and taking a step towards him I gave him a re-
sounding slap on the back. ‘‘Don’t bother about that,’’
said I, ‘‘you got them both, which is more than I could
have done. It was worth the hunt to see you do it.”’

We now headed for the Packer place, where we had
located a flock of about fifteen partridges in one of our

WITH WOODCOCK AND PARTRIDGE 21
former hunts, but the birds did not seem to be in the
treetops and brush-heaps where we had found them
before and we turned our steps towards the clumps of
birches in the next lot. Count scrambled over the wall,
began nosing around, and soon struck a scent so hot
that he had to crawl along on his belly to avoid over-
running his bird. In a minute he froze to a stiff point
in some tiny birch sprouts along the path. There was
no undergrowth and I wondered where the bird was for
IT could see none. Church said he could see him just in
front of the dog’s nose. I stepped in and a nice fat
woodcock whistled out in the open and went corkscrew-
ing down the path. Both barrels of my gun and one
of Thompson’s had no effect on ‘‘Mr. Timberdoodle”’
further than to increase the speed and weird twisting
of his flight. We marked him down a few hundred
yards away near a big maple, and followed after. As
I was scrambling over a dilapidated stone wall trying
to keep various portions thereof from landing on my
toes, the woodcock flushed again. It rose up straight
through the treetops, giving Thompson as good a shot
as the one I had just missed. He failed to take advan-
tage of his opportunity and we pursued the bird another
‘‘fly.?? This time Church had his turn on a wild flush
but the cock still kept on, this time into a thick swamp
where we were unable to find him.

We turned back to the birches, ‘‘Tom Gardner’s wood-
cock patch,’’ as Church called it, to look for more and
it was not long before we had another point. <A cock
flushed ahead of me and headed straight through the

22 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

myriad birch twigs. I sighted the bird carefully over
my old Seott, and at the crack of my first shot he shut
up like a jack-knife. Count retrieved and we tried out
the rest of the patch. Suddenly the dog stiffened and
we walked in ahead of him. ‘‘Brrrr! brrrr!’’ and two
partridges got up on the further edge of the cover and
went streaking across the open pasture and into the
woods beyond. Luckily their line of flight led towards
Abell’s and lunch and we chased them up. One we
were unable to find. The other buzzed out of a treetop
in front of Church, who fired and downed her just as I
pulled myself. I say ‘‘downed,’’ and so I thought, but
just before she struck the ground the partridge re-
covered herself and scaled off into the cedars. Finally,
Church, who suggested that she might be a little further
to the left than we had searched, wandered over in that
direction and nearly stepped on the bird lying dead on
its back. When he had tucked it away in the back
pocket of his shooting coat we hurried on to Abell’s
and strengthened ourselves with a sandwich or two be-
fore we started on the afternoon’s hunt.

Our luncheon inside and our pipes lighted we started
the old machine up the cross-road that ran near Ford’s
swamp, and hopped out at the bars leading into Ford’s
seven-acre lot. There were no signs of game in the
alder run, however, and we kept on up a path over the
side hill beyond. As we dipped down over the ridge,
Count pointed in the maples at the pathside. The dog’s
nose was held high as if he scented a partridge in a

WITH WOODCOCK AND PARTRIDGE 23

clump of cedars beyond, so when a woodcock fluttered
up in front of me the minute I stepped into the cover
I promptly missed with both barrels. The old setter
made another nice point on ‘‘Mr. Timberdoodle’’ after
his first ‘‘fly’? and again I tried my luck. I thought I
would be more careful this time and when the bird
flushed, waited until I got him over the end of the gun.
Just as I pressed the trigger the cock decided he would
change his straightaway course, and swooped to the
left. Needless to say, my charge of No. 8’s came no-
where near him. We marked him down by a fence
near the brook that wandered through the gulley at the
foct of the hill, and started after. On our way Count
had another point and it was Church’s chance this time.
William walked over to and by the dog when suddenly
the woodecock twittered up behind him. Church swung
around like lightning, but the bird dropped down before
he could hoid on him. We went back over the ridge
and at the dog’s point I called to Church, ‘‘Now you
eet him. I can’t hit a thing.’’ Church flushed the bird
but did not fire and the longbill gave me a beautiful
straightaway shot as it twisted up over the treetops.
We turned back after woodecock No. 1. ‘‘How about
this last one?’’ you ask. ‘‘Did you get him??’’

I didn’t think it necessary to say anything more about
that ‘‘darned’’ bird. I certainly did—not, and he kept
on out of sight.

As we trudged down the hillside towards the fence I
told William that he would have to kill the bird as it

24 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

was beyond me. The sound of my voice flushed the
woodcock—a flight bird which my shooting had made
rather wild—and he got up over forty yards away.
Church’s old Marlin, however, was good for the distance
and the cock dropped.

We crossed the brook and up over the hill beyond,
then swung back towards the machine. A partridge
‘‘brrr-ed!’’ out of a clump of long grass at the edge of
the cover and I snapped at her ineffectively as she went
sailing down toward the brook. Church marked where
the bird dropped down near a fallen chestnut tree and
we kept on after her. My resolves were most deadly
as we approached the treetop, and when the old hen
started to make for the top of the other side hill, I took
plenty of time and carefully missed her with the first
barrel. By this time I thought her out of range, and
fired the second barrel in her general direction just for
luck. The bird was topping a big oak but at the
‘‘crack’’ of this last ‘‘luck shot’’ she came bumping on
down through the dead leaves as dead as a herring.

We had one more point as we walked down the brook
to the road, but the partridge flushed way ahead of us.
When we got to the machine Thompson told us that the
bird had just sailed over the road into the next lot.
That field was posted. However, we thought we had
our share and called it a day at that.

A MIXED BAG

in late October when I drove the machine containing

friend Church with ‘‘Count,’’ his old English setter,
Thompson and the Scribe into Abell’s yard. Abell was
the gatekeeper at Gardner’s Lake, and his son, Elmer,
usually went ‘‘huntin’’’ with us. This morning, how-
ever, we were a trifie early for him, as he had not yet
finished his chores, and he said he would join us after
lunch. |

Church and I left Thompson chatting with Elmer, and
_whistling Count to heel, started off across the fields.
There was a swamp hole a short distance from the Abell
place, where we usually flushed two or three partridges,
and this was our starting point.

*‘T’ll go through the swamp,’’ said Church, ‘‘and you
keep along this edge. If I start one and it comes your
way, get him.’’ A wave of his hand and old Count
galloped off into the thick growth of alders. Church
followed him and they were soon out of sight, though I
could easily keep track of them by the crackling under-
brush. I followed the edge of the swamp, my gun
ready for business. ‘‘Brrrr! Brrrr!’’ Two partridges
jumped up out of an old treetop to my right. ‘‘Crack!’’

25

[: was shortly after 8 on a clear, frosty morning

26 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

and the old cock bird making for the birches doubled
up like a bunch of wet feathers. ‘‘Crack!’’ again, but
the hen partridge, wiser than her mate, contrived to
place the trunk of a large oak between us. You could
see the bark fly when I fired. I ‘‘coo-ped’’ to Church
as a signal that I had been successful and broke my
eun to reload. ‘‘Brrrr!’’ and partridge number three
flushed from the same treetop, giving me a fine shot had
I been ready for him. I marked him down in the
birches while waiting for Count to retrieve the fallen
bird.

We tramped through the rest of the swamp hole with-
out starting another feather, and then decided to swing
back to the right through the birches where the other
partridges had gone and on to Ford’s swamp, where we
usually found a woodeock or two. Church and Count
worked through the cover while I strolled down an old
woods road, hoping to get a shot if a bird flew across.
We were nearing the spot where I had marked down
partridge number three, when Church exclaimed, ‘‘ Look
out! I’ve got a point!’’ An instant later the partridge
soared up out of the birches and across the road right in
front of me. I fired, and pulled down the gun without
trying the second barrel, so sure was I that I had held
on him. But he still kept going, though a few small
feathers fluttered down in the road. A short distance
beyond another partridge flushed ahead of us, and then
still another. We did not see them until they were out
of gunshot, but noted that they were all headed for the
cedars on the wooded ridge to our left.

A MIXED BAG 27

As we approached the end of the cover, Church told
me to stay where I was while he cireled around to the
right with Count and if he flushed a bird it would prob-
ably come my way. There were no more birds, however,
in that neck of woods, and all Church started was a nice,
fat rabbit that went bumping down a path in the briars
away from me. The chance was too good to lose, and I
gave him a barrel, causing him to turn a complete
somersault and fell dead in the path, his hind legs
twitching convulsively.

Ford’s swamp, our next objective, consisted of a long
alder run which overhung both banks of a small brook.
Chureh and Count worked their way through the cover
and left me to take care of the edge. ‘‘Count’s making
game,’’ called Church, and sure enough I could glimpse
the old black-and-white setter cautiously trailing. Sud-
denly he froze to a stiff point, and Church, with a warn-
ing ‘‘ Watch out!’’ walked in ahead of him. With twit-
tering wings a woodcock fluttered up through the alders
and, swinging out of the cover just ahead of me, headed
for a clump of birches on the side hill. I shot too
quickly and missed with my first barrel, but closed up
Mr. Longbill in good shape with my second. Count
retrieved, and we went on up the run. ‘‘I’ve got an-
other point,’’ murmured Church, from the thicket, and
I heard the whistle of another woodeock. I saw nothing
for a second or two and then the bird showed up over
the alders, but well on the other side of the run. At
the sound of my gun he dropped like a stone, at least

28 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

forty yards away. ‘‘That was a nice shot,’’ came from
Chureh. ‘‘I was afraid you wouldn’t get him.”’

We hunted over the rest of the run, but found no more
birds there, though Count kept making game, and there
was abundant signs of woodcock borings. It looked as
if a number of flight birds had dropped in during the
night and left in the morning before we arrived—that
is, all but the two I had killed.

We next headed for the cedars on the ridge, where
we had left the partridges. We knew the chances were
against our getting good shots in the thick cover, but
trusted to drive the birds out into good shooting country
again. Count began to trail almost as soon as we got
there, and Church followed him under the cedars. In
a few minutes he ‘‘coo-ped’’ to me softly and whispered,
‘‘Get into an open place if you can, I’ve got a point
here.’’ I stole into a little clearing with cedars on all
sides, a little to the right of Church and the dog. This
clearing was not over ten feet across, and if I was to
get a bird crossing it, it would be a case of snapping.
I heard Church step in, and with a roar like an express
train the partridge flashed across the clearing. I swung
the gun across with her as I fired and had the satisfae-
tion of hearing her come down with a thump in an old
pine tree at my left. Count brought her in, and we kept
on through the cedars, flushing two more partridges
which got up wild ahead of us and flew across the road
into Powell’s lot. This was posted, but Church said it
would be all right for us to shoot there as the signs

A MIXED BAG 29

were only to keep the Abells out, as they and Powell had
had some right-of-way dispute. We crossed the road,
climbing the stone wall and started in. Church was
shightly ahead of me, and as he came to the edge of a
small lot covered with low brush and clumps of birches,
a partridge jumped up from a bush right in front of
him. He had to shoot quickly or the bird would have
been out of sight in the cover, but it seemed to me as
if the ‘‘brrr!’’ of the partridge getting up and the crack
of Church’s gun were almost simultaneous, and the bird
dropped in a cloud of feathers.

As it was now noon, and we had left our lunches in
the machine, we made our way back to Abell’s. Elmer
and Thompson were waiting for us, anxious to see our
game, and when he had spread them out, Elmer said,
‘‘T’ve got something to add to your string.’’ He
groped under the robe in the back of the machine and
brought out first one black duck and then another.
‘‘Thompson and I killed these while you were away,”’’
he explained. ‘‘We saw a bunch of five drop down in
that pool near the head of the lake. We crawled up to
them through the long grass and brush, and when we
got to the edge of the pond discovered that only these
two were within range. We each shot one, waited until
the wind blew them ashore and here they are. I think
you can get a shot at a jacksnipe over in that marsh;
we started one when we were creeping up on the ducks.”’

Accordingly, when we had devoured our sandwiches
and had smoked a pipeful of tobacco each, Church and

30 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

I, accompanied by Elmer, and, of course, by old Count,
made for the piece of marsh north of the lake. We
spread out and covered the ground thoroughly to see
what we could find, and soon saw Elmer shoot and
pick up a jJacksnipe. I had the next chance, as I saw a
grassbird standing in the mud at the edge of a puddle.
I walked him up, and as he rose dropped him in the
water. Then I heard the harsh ‘‘scaipe! scaipe!’’ of a
jacksnipe as it flushed far ahead. All of a sudden it
made one of its corkscrew twists and went skimming
by Church like a bullet. ‘‘Bang!’’ went his gun, and
again ‘‘bang!’’ but the snipe kept on. I marked him
down at the edge of some thick brush a short distance
ahead of me, and started after him. He fiushed in
range and went straight up, high enough to clear the
bushes, but before he could begin his twisting and
dodging I fired and landed him. I waited for Count to
retrieve, as I hated to get into the thick cover where
the bird dropped, but the dog could not seem to locate
him, and I finally had to take part in the hunt myself.
I did find that snipe, though it took me some time to do
so. He had fallen with his back up and his plumage
blended exactly with the surroundings. This was the
last snipe we found. Elmer said he knew where there
was a covey of quail, so we now followed his guidance.

He took us across the road and through a big field of
corn stubble. Count quartered the field in fine style,
and did his best to find the birds, but they were not
there. Next we tried a weed patch in the adjoining
field, and lastly the brush along the edge of these two

A MIXED BAG 31

fields, but found them not, and we turned our faces
towards Abell’s and the machine.

As we were cutting across the mowing lot just across
the road from Abell’s, Count, who was investigating a
buckwheat patch along the wall, made a point. ‘‘That’s
nothing,’’ said Church, ‘‘just some of those small
birds,’? and we walked on. Thompson, however, who
had joined us when we came back from our snipe hunt,
turned and went over to the old dog. ‘‘Whirr! whirr!
whirr!’’ and some fifteen fat quail shot away in front
of him toward the swamp hole where I had killed my
first partridge in the morning. Thompson fired twice
and got one bird, a left quarterer that was making for
the corn stubble we had just crossed. ‘‘Darn the luck!’’
I growled, ‘‘that’s what comes of not believing in your
dog. We would have killed three or four of these birds
if we had attended to business. Let’s hunt them up.’’

Soon Elmer stepped on a brush heap and the whole
covey flushed again. The cover was too thick for a
shot, but we marked down the scattered birds and pre-
pared to hunt them up one by one. Elmer fiushed the
first bird at the edge of the bog but missed him. The
quail whizzed by Church like a bullet, but stopped right
there when he fired. Shortly afterward Count made a
point and Church called us up for a shot. However,
the bird chose to go through the brush where Church
stood instead of the safer way by us, and he joined the
other in the pocket of Church’s coat. Count pointed
again, and this time a nice little cock quail flew my way.

32 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

He went so fast that he outdistanced my first charge,
but the second overtook him, and he came down dead.

By this time the sun had gone down, and it was get-
ting too dark to shoot, so we made for home.

At Abell’s, before starting the machine, we took stock
of our game, and a pretty bunch of birds it was for this
vicinity—three partridges, two woodcock, four quail,
two jacksnipe, two black ducks, one grassbird and one
cottontail. This was our ‘‘ Mixed Bag.”’

RAIL SHOOTING ON CONNECTICUT
RIVER

eannot realize the fascination the sport holds for
one who has experienced it. In the first place in
September there is for the New Englander little else in
the line of feathered game on which he can test his skill
unless it be on shore birds. The rail are still fairly
numerous, their haunts are easily reached from the
metropolis, and their pursuit is not accompanied by the
hardships and privations incident to wildfowling, for
instance. In short, about all one has to do is to keep
his balance on a three-legged stool in a flat-bottomed
boat and shoot the rail as they flutter away in front of
him while the ‘‘pusher’’ behind does all the work.
Essex and Deep River on the west bank of the Con-
necticut River and Brockway’s on the east are the chief
_fitting-out points for such famous grounds as Eustasia
Island, Hudson’s Hole, Salmon River and last but not
least, Selden’s Cove. In the huge wild-oat fields of the
‘‘Cove’’ I have counted at a tide over thirty boats, and

the nearly continuous shooting sounded like some mimic
33

ose set who have never tried rail shooting

34 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

warfare. At one time there was no limit and the rail
were literally massacred, but now with a limit set, the
birds have a chance to hold out for our sons to slaughter
though even that chance is a slim one.

My first experience was one never to be forgotten.
It was pouring in torrents when I arose at 6 A. M. and
did not let up until after 7 when I started off with the
old red runabout to pick up Willis Austin, my shooting
companion. The sun was shining as we headed for
Herb Banning’s house at Brockway’s Landing and I
didn’t think it worth while to go out of my way to the
garage to get a set of tire chains. Over near Hamburg
we took a wrong turn and lost our way among some of
the most precipitous hills it has ever been my fate to
see. The old car had gravity feed and the grades were
so steep she wouldn’t feed into the carburetor. We
nursed her over one mountain, but arriving in the hol-
low on the further side, we discovered that getting up
the next hill was going to be worse than climbing the
side of a house. I set the old car at it backwards and
she climbed up it till she came to a right-angled muddy
curve in the middle of the grade. Here the wheels
spun uselessly around and around in a hail of red mud
till I took pity on the machine and dropped back to the
foot of the hill. On the second trial I succeeded no
better than the first. The third time I had gained
about two feet on my other marks when I was greeted
by a crack under the car, something seemed to give way
and I shot back to the foot of the hill so fast that I

RAIL SHOOTING ON CONNECTICUT RIVER 35

narrowly missed landing in the gutter. The propellor
shaft had dropped out. As it was nearing 11 when the
tide would be high enough for shooting, Willis and I
left Thompson, the chauffeur, with the car and ‘‘hoofed’’
the remaining mile and half over to Banning’s. There
we left word to send a yoke of oxen back for the ‘‘in-
valid’? while we accompanied Herb to the dock, boarded
his launch and, towing a couple of shoving skiffs astern,
set off for Selden’s Cove.

Arriving at the cove, Willis and Banning dropped into
one skiff while I joined ‘‘ Red-beard,’’ Banning’s pusher,
in the other. Soon a small brown bird with long droop-
ing legs fluttered off over the top of the tall oats ahead
of me. ‘‘Mark!’’ cried Red-Beard and I missed the
rail. This performance was repeated some five times
until Red-beard, who had had a long pull at my flask,
exclaimed, ‘‘You gotta kill ’em better’n that or Ban-
ning’ll have us beat a mile. Take it a bit more slow
an’ careful.’’ The next rail gave me an easy straight-
away and I literally blew him to pieces, his head, wings
and legs being all that was left of him. I had now mas-
tered the knack of killing the feeble flying birds and
missed only three more before we got back to the launch.
Willis and Banning were waiting for us with the limit
of thirty-five rail which Willis bagged with forty-one
shells. Red-beard and I had eighteen and I had used
twenty-eight shells.

My next rail shoot came late in the season a few years
later. Willis and I had been unable to get away earlier

36 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

and anticipated a slim shoot when we found Herb and
his partner on the dock at Deep River. Banning, as
usual, piloted Willis and headed for Selden’s Cove, while
Red-beard and I started for the oat fields that sur-
round Eustasia Island. I had brought with me for good
luck a bottle of cherry whisky and divided its contents
between the two pushers before we left the wharf. It
did not seem to have much effect on their leathern
throats and hard heads. I know Banning said to me as
we were leaving after the shoot, ‘‘I don’t think much
of that stuff of yours—ain’t got no kickto it. Why
didn’t yer bring some real whisky?’’

At Eustasia Island I killed just four rail although
Red-beard kept pounding down the oats with his pole
in attempting to flush the skulkers. The trouble was
with the tide which was poor and enabled the rail to
run ashore before us without rising. IJ knew the birds
were there as several times when Red-beard thrashed
about in the cover with his pole they began to squeak,
reminding me for all the world of a litter of puppies
whose dam had deserted them.

Hudson’s Hole was our second destination but there
the same conditions prevailed. Three more rail were
added to my score with two shots missed so you can see
that the fun could hardly be called ‘‘fast and furious.’’
We rallied several bunches of black ducks returning
along the shore of Eustasia Island, but none within gun-
shot. Willis and Banning soon joined us at the Deep

RAIL SHOOTING ON CONNECTICUT RIVER oT

River dock. They had apparently happened upon a
small flight of rail at Selden’s as Willis had killed
thirty-four and lost thirteen cripples with fifty shells.

On my next two rail shoots Banning did my ‘‘push-
inge’’ and his new man, ‘‘Indian Joe,’’ took care of
Thompson.

As we were leaving ‘‘Ustasy’’ Island, as ‘‘Herb’’
called it, for Selden’s Cove after our first shoot I had
a rather novel experience. Three rail rose ahead oi
us, two straightaways and one left quarterer. I killed
the two straightaways, one with each barrel, and the
left quarterer alighted on the shore of the island. Ban-
ning jumped out of the skiff and fiushed the bird, who
was wise enough to direct his flight precisely in line
with Herb’s sturdy form. That Banning realized his
position was proven to me by his throwing himself flat
on his face, while calling to me to ‘‘Shoot him!’’ Need-
less to say, I landed Mr. Rail.

At Selden’s Cove that day I had my first encounter
with a Connecticut game warden. A short, stout old
fellow with a very red face and a white moutache show-
ing under his old straw hat was sitting at the mouth of
the Cove as Banning and I approached. He sung out
to me for my shooting license which luckily I was able
to produce for his benefit from the depths of my shoot-
ing coat pocket. The old boy grunted and jotted down
the license number in his note-book. It was very plain
to be seen that he was disappointed at not catching
me ‘‘with the goods on.”’

38 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

When we got back to Brockway’s and were munching
our lunch at the dock Banning spun a few of his most
choice shooting yarns. I wish I could remeber them all
and do justice to his skill as a ‘‘raconteur.’’ Certain
bits still linger in my memory; particularly about the
old red fox that ‘‘Bugle’’ had trailed for five hours and
two of the boys had peppered in vain with BB’s. At
last he came by Herb, who was squatting down behind
an old stone wall, with a cut shell in the left barrel of
his gun in case of a long shot. ‘‘Th’ old vixen was
right over on th’ far side of that plain field but th’ cut
shell did the trick. She turned a somersault and fell
over stone dead. I paced off to where she lay—just
seventeen rod.”’

There was another story that Herb told about a
fellow named Bishop who went rail shooting with him
one day. Bishop, it seems, had a beautiful Purdey gun
and all the other impedimenta necessary to quality as a
Nimrod, including a high opinion of his own prowess.
However, his reputation alone wouldn’t kill rail, and
after shooting eighty-one shots and downing sixteen
birds, he made Banning a present of his gun and made
tracks for the metropolis.

My last shoot with Banning is memorable because my
bag contained one Virginia rail. Herb said they are not
rare in this vicinity, but it was the first one I had ever
seen. I didn’t notice anything particularly distinctive
about it when the bird rose except its size, which I re-
marked to Banning, but he recognized it at once and
said it was a ‘‘Virginia’’ before he started to retrieve it.

RAIL SHOOTING ON CONNECTICUT RIVER 39

Other interesting incidents were the distant view of
a large clapper rail winging its way far out of our
neighborhood, and my meeting with another game war-
den, this time old man Brockway of Brockway’s laxd-
ing. He was certainly a genial soul and one who appre-
ciated the superior boquet of ‘‘Old Hermitage Whisky.’’
I really think that Herb Banning, big-hearted fellow
that he is, was jealous that day of his old neighbor’s
capacity and studied proximity to that bottle.

DUCK AND PLOVER SHOOTING IN THE
PACIFIC NORTHWEST

HEN Maxwell invited me to accompany him on

a ducking trip to the LaConner Flats, I didn’t

hesitate long about accepting; just long enough
to find out that the ‘‘Chief’’ was willing to let me go
from Friday evening until Monday. Accordingly we
foregathered aboard the old stern-wheeler, the ‘‘Grey-
hound,’’ when she cast loose from her Seattle dock and
turned her nose towards Anacortes at 10 o’clock that
Friday evening. Maxwell had his Parker, I had my old
Scott, and we took along a hundred shells each, loaded
with three and one-quarter drams of Dupont and an
ounce and one-eighth of No. 6 shot. Needless to say,
we were well equipped with gum-boots, shooting coats,
sweaters, etc.

We turned in early and slept soundly till we were
aroused at 2 A. M. by the boat bumping into the cannery
dock at Anacortes. We hustled into our clothes, then
gathered up our belongings and went ashore. It was
pitch dark, and we stumbled along over the fish nets
stretched out on the wharf, until Maxwell produced a

pocket flashlight and led the way to the outskirts of
40

SHOOTING IN PACIFIC NORTHWEST 41

the town. Under a smoky street-lamp a weather-beaten
sion ‘‘Rasterant’’ caught my eye, and rousing the pro-
prietor, a fat, greasy-looking ‘‘Dago’’ from his snooze,
Maxwell and I stocked up with a few pounds of fried
ham topped off with some two dozen eggs. We also
sampled a tasteless but smoking-hot brown liquid that
the proprietor called ‘‘coffee.’’ My partner, Maxwell,
had an appointment in town at 9 o’clock, and we passed
the time away sitting in the deserted lobby of the local
hotel, burning tobacco, swapping yarns and dozing—
principally dozing. At 7 o’clock, when the hotel dining-
room opened, we surrounded a second breakfast, and
afterwards Maxwell hustled away to finish his business,
while I strolled around to the livery stable and corralled
a rig to transport us to the marsh.

Ten o’clock saw us well under way for the shooting
grounds eight miles distant from Anacortes. The road
was rough, the horses slow and the wagon springless,
while the back seat was held down by a single small
serew and continually threatened to hop out into the
ditch with its occupants. JI was much relieved when
along towards noon we pulled up at the small farm
house where we were to spend the night. Maxwell and
I donned our shooting outfits, filled our pockets with
shells and, putting our guns together, started off to find
George Lemon, our guide. A short walk through the
marsh brought us to the cabin alongside the creck
where Maxwell said George and his brother lived.
Nets in profusion and two or three fishing boats that

42 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

were moored to the rough landing were proof that the
Lemon boys’ principal occupation was salmon fishing.
Prolonged knocking at the cabin door finally brought
forth a hoarse ‘‘Shut up!’’ a window banged open and
a tousled head of light hair surmounting a pair of
sleepy blue eyes and a tawny moustache emerged. This
was George.

‘‘Naw, I won’t go shooting. I gotta sleep. Me and
Bill just got in from catching ‘silvers’ and we’re clean
done up,’’ was his welcome.

Maxwell was prepared for the emergency. Reaching
into his hip pocket he brought out a quart flask. The
window immediately crashed down, and a second later
George stood in his open doorway asking us to come
in and ‘‘set down’’ while he pulled his boots on. That
task accomplished and a fair share of the contents of
Maxwell’s flask stowed under his belt, Lemon was ready
to accompany us. We bailed out the water in a small
skiff lying at the dock, stowed some twenty-five mallard
decoys in the stern and hopped in. George took his
place at the oars and we went sliding down the creek
with the ebb tide.

It was soft and calm, a regular ‘‘blue-bird day,’’ and
though it had been rather foggy in the early morning,
the mist was rapidly rolling away before the warm rays
of the sun. The tide was dead low, leaving bare miles
of mud flats and crisscrossed by numerous sloughs and
creeks. Beyond the flats the water was like glass and
there rested acres upon acres of ducks. Occasionally a

-

SHOOTING IN PACIFIC NORTHWEST 43

small bunch would get up in front of us and skim away
to join the crowd. To my mind all signs pointed to a
pretty slim shoot. I turned to George and said, ‘‘What
are the chances?’’

‘*Nawthin’ doin’ till evenin’ when the tide comes in,’’
was his answer. ‘‘Then I’ll put yer on the sou’west
pint at the mouth of ther main slough and give yer a
chance to kill a few.”’

A flock of seven large ducks from the marsh flew
right over our boat. They were not very high up and
Maxwell gave them a barrel. He was sorry afterwards
that he hadn’t given them a second, as one of them
closed up and splashed dead in the water ahead of us.
We retrieved the bird, a fat mallard, and as we had now
come to the mouth of the creek, turned to the right and
set off along the edge of the flats. We headed up the
first slough, hoping to jump a duck or two within range,
but found none. Maxwell, however, spied a Wilson
snipe feeding near a small pond on the flats, and had
us set him ashore. He thought he might pick up a few
birds and then meet us at the next waterway. I went
on up the slough with George. It was not long before
I heard the crack of Maxwell’s gun, but gave it little
attention as I saw something of interest myself. <A
flock of nine plover, ‘‘beetleheads,’’ I determined, weve
feeding on the further bank of the stream. I told
George to paddle quietly by along the further bank of
the slough and then drift down close to them with the
tide. As we came in gunshot I stood up and flushed

44 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

the birds, giving them both barrels as they rose. Four
fell—three dead on the mud and one with a broken
wing in the water. George rowed after the cripple
while I jumped ashore and picked up the others. There
I found that they were not ‘‘beetleheads’’ but golden
plover.

I judged that we had run into a flight of these birds
as the flats were teeming with them in flocks containing
anywhere from six or eight to over a hundred. It was
impossible to get within gunshot on foot as I found out
soon and our plan of drifting with the tide by the
numerous bunches seemed the only successful way and
with the big flocks even this failed. J shot on and on
with varying success—out of one bunch I remember I
dropped nine with both barrels, while out of another I
killed only one, and out of a third I am ashamed to say
I got none. Meanwhile we had been gradually working
our way along the edge of the flats to the next slough
where we met Maxwell. He had five ‘‘jack’’ or Wilson
snipe and nine plover and wanted to know what I had
been banging away at. My forty-odd birds in the bottom
of the skiff was a pretty good answer and made him
regret that he had ever left us.

The tide had turned and was gradually covering the
flats and as the water had come up to the edge of the
marsh at the point where we intended to set out, George
rowed us across the main slough and put us ashore to
repair the old blind while he tied out the stool. Then
he hid the skiff in a small creek back of us and we sat
and waited for the evening flight to begin.

SHOOTING IN PACIFIC NORTHWEST 45

A huge raft of ducks, principally teal, were floating
on the placid water in front of our point, and were
gradually drifting toward us. They came so near we
could see that many of them were asleep with their
heads under their wings, while a few were feeding on
the drift and the rest were noisily discussing the affairs
of the nation. But before they were within gunshot a
eross current sent them down into the little bay on our
right and we didn’t get the shot we had anticipated.
We thought of creeping around through the marsh grass
to the head of the bay but then decided it was not
worth while for a ‘‘pot shot’? and that we might lose
more than we would gain. A half hour later the roar
of two heavy loads sounded on our ears and the tumult
as the raft got up showed that other hunters had been
watching. We found out later that the gunner killed
fourteen teal and a mallard with his two barrels.

It was not long before we had a chance ourselves.
Two big ducks streaked in from outside. We saw they
were mallards as they came nearer. They headed for
our decoys, but kept on straight over us. I could see
the light glisten on the glossy green head of the drake,
which was on my side.

‘‘Are you ready?’’ whispered Maxwell.

pebes.. | Said

‘‘Then let them have it.’’

‘‘Bang!’’? and the head of my drake snapped back as
he came down with a resounding splash in the water in
front of the blind. ‘‘Crack’’ and his mate wilted at

46 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

Maxwell’s shot and thudded down on the grass behind
us.

Then a bunch of greenwings hissed by over the
decoys from the right and our four barrels dropped
three. Another wisp of teal and five more joined our
count.

The fun was fast and furious while it lasted but it
was rapidly growing dark. Soon it became a matter
of waiting for the whistle of hurrying wings from dark
shadows overhead, for the tongues of red flame darting
up in the air, for the loud ‘‘crash’”’ of reports and the
echoes from the dusky marsh and sometimes for the
bump of a heavy body on the ground or a splash in the
water showing we had scored. More often we would
listen in vain and then wait for the next chance.

At last the sky grew dark and we could no longer
discern the ducks against it. We signaled to George,
picked up our dead and the decoys and made for the
farm house where we were to spend the night.

Once outside a good hot supper, we lighted our pipes
and sat back before a blazing open fire and talked over
our past experiences, then hurried to bed and a few
hours of dreamless sleep. The thunderous knocking on
our door and the hoarse ‘‘Four o’clock, gents!’’ seemed
all too soon. We fell out of bed, lighted the lamp and
tumbled into our clothes. Downstairs we attacked a
breakfast of coffee, bacon and eggs, and then tramped
off in the starlight for George’s place. We found that
Bill, his brother, was ready for us and soon rowed us

ae

SHOOTING IN PACIFIC NORTHWEST 47

back to the stand we had occupied the night before.
The decoys were out in jiffy and we waited for daylight.

A whistle of wings, the roar of Maxwell’s gun and
the splash of a falling body showed that the work was
on. Teal began streaming over our decoys from both
sides with occasionally a small bunch of mallards. They
eame in flurries so that at times we seemed to shoot
nearly continuously, then perhaps for half an hour we
would not fire again. As the sun rose the tide began
to drop and the shots to come at longer intervals. A
lone mallard flew by, well up in the air, and in my judg-
ment out of range. Maxwell thought differently, tried
him with his choked barrel and to my amazement picked
the duck out of the air as dead as a herring.

‘*T tell you, Bigelow,’’ cried he, ‘‘there’s nothing like
a Parker gun for killing them!”’

At this instant three teal loomed up, skimming over
the water towards the decoys from his side of the
stand. Maxwell had not had time to reload, and could
only try one shot. Something must have happened to
the Parker, as all three birds still kept on. They were
flying in single file but it seemed to me that the second
duck was gaining on the first one. At any rate, I was
lucky enough to cut them both down with my first
barrel and kill number three with my second. The
temptation was too great to resist and I could not help
asking, ‘‘Don’t you think the old Scott is in the same
class with the Parker, Maxwell?’’ He could not do
otherwise but agree.

48 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

We shot two or three ducks after this before the tide
left our decoys resting on the flats, and then we took
up. We had a few shells left out of our original two
hundred and cruised along the banks of the main slough
to use them up on the plover. These birds were much
wilder than the day before, but we added over a score
to our count. At 11 o’clock, as our shells had run out,
we turned our faces toward the landing, Anacortes and
Seattle. Our bag, I was told, was not extraordinary for
that locality, but at home it would seem almost too big.
I know that the fifty-four ducks—forty teal and fourteen
mallards—and the eighty golden plover were all that
Maxwell and I cared to lug through the streets of
Seattle the following morning.

ON THE HEADWATERS OF THE
TUOLUMNE _

FTER leaving college I started in to learn the
mining business at the ‘‘Mary Harrison’’ mine,
Coulterville, Mariposa County, California. Our

chief clerk, Kidder, was an enthusiastic sportsman and
when at Thanksgiving time he had to go back in the
hills to look over some ditches in connection with a
water-power scheme, he took along his rifle and asked
me to come with him as there was a chance to kill a
deer.

It was forty miles from Coulterville to ‘‘Crocker’s,’’
where we intended to ‘‘put up,’’ and we made an early
start. The mine manager had loaned us a pair of green
but sturdy horses to pull the buggy over the narrow,
muddy trail, the day was fair, the air crisp and snappy
and we were well supplied with pipes, cigars and
tobacco. The only person we met on the road was Bill
Fiske, the horse-trader, a typical ‘‘old timer.’’ We
stopped for lunch at Hamilton’s, and the old man told
us that his ‘‘bye Garge’’ had killed a nice buck two
days before. I know that the venison steak went to the
right spot.

49

50 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

In the afternoon our outfit scared up one flock of the
California valley quail and a little later three flocks of
the mountain variety. Perhaps I didn’t hanker for my
old Scott. About 3 o’clock we arrived at the site of the
proposed hydro-electric plant, a deep canon eroded by
the Tuolumne River, which flowed through its depths.
It was the end of a series of ditches which brought the
water from the head of the river, a distance of eight
or ten miles, to fall over twelve hundred feet at the
bottom of the gorge. We had many distant glimpses
of the river as we continued our journey. In ’49,
which was considerably before our time, the Tuolumne
was one of the famous deposits of placer gold, and -
there is mighty little of its auriferous sand that has
not been panned again and again.

Mrs. Crocker welcomed our arrival and her cooking
tasted like ‘‘back home’’ as she was a ‘‘down Easter’’ —
from Maine. She got hold of me after supper and did
not quit until she had pumped me dry as a bone about
everything that had happened in New England during
the past ten years. Her’s was a lonely life, only two
neighbors—one of those a ‘‘Greaser’’ family—within
ten miles, but she was as bright as a button and looked
as if she had not experienced a day’s sickness in her
forty-odd years. She said the summer time was a little
more lively as a good many parties going into the
Yosemite put up at her place.

The following morning we hired a rig so as to give
our steeds a rest before the long home grind. It was

ON THE HEADWATERS OF THE TUOLUMNE 51

a raw, cold day and the gathering clouds threatened
rain. Our route led over a rough woods-road to. the
head of the ditch and our progress was necessarily slow
on account of the numerous stumps and logs that beset
our path. Kidder called my attention to some tall
brush that looked like our New England hazel brush.
He said the deer were very fond of the leaves and buds
and that it was commonly known as ‘‘deer brush.’’ As
we passed a large thicket of the brush we heard a great’
sound of breaking twigs and rustling branches and a
minute later a fat doe bounded across the trail. She
was followed by a little spotted fawn that became con-
fused and galloped along a short way beside us. When
in connection with this the men working on the ditch
said that the deer were very numerous, we decided after
lunch to walk back and sent one of the repair crew with
the rig some distance in advance. The rain that had
been threatening all day started to come down in tor-
rents and we were soon throughly drenched. Kidder
had given me his 30-30 Winchester and said, ‘‘If you
see a deer, make sure it’s a buck and then give it to
him.,”?

We were more than half way to Crocker’s and were
walking along the north branch of the Tuolumne not
far from the ford when, as we were passing a clump of
the ‘‘deer brush,’’ Kidder nudged my elbow. ‘‘Look!’’
said he, and pointed to my left. After a short scrutiny
I saw what I took to be the hind quarters of a deer that
seemed to be standing broadside to me, and a short dis-
tance ahead, his horns projecting over the brush. I

52 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

took careful aim at the hip and pressed the trigger.
My! what a rumpus ensued. The deer crashed into the
bushes a short way and was still, while from all sides
came the sounds of others escaping. We hurried after
my victim to cut his throat and had just reached him,
when another buck with a much finer head got up within
thirty steps and started off. I drew a bead on his lord-
ship and pulled. ‘‘Click!’’ a missfire, and when finally
I did shoot it was at a flying grey streak which, needless
to state, I missed. Kidder dressed the deer and we then
started to drag him out. How we did it I don’t know
for though Kidder said it was only three miles I am
sure it was all of six. We were certainly a tired pair
when we reached Mrs. Crocker’s hospitable door but
pretty well satisfied at that. The deer was hung up
back of the barn and we sat down with zest to do justice
to the ‘‘vittles.’’

Thursday was Thanksgiving day and we tramped
around through the woods primarily to whet our appe-
tites in working order for the old-fashioned dinner.
We saw no deer although we saw the fresh tracks of a
buck and a doe not over a half-mile from the house.
Near the river we ran across the huge track of a grizzly
bear and followed it a mile or more. The prints did
not look very fresh and when we discovered that they
led over Bald Mountain we left the track and headed
for the house.

ON THE HEADWATERS OF THE TUOLUMNE 3)

Thanksgiving dinner was served at 2 o’clock and what
a gorge! I didn’t expect to be able to ever leave the
table. It was a regular New England feast, lacking
only the turkey, but this void was so well taken up by
roast chicken and the superabundance of pies ‘‘such as
mother used to make’’ that we never missed the noble
bird at all.

Friday morning we took the back trail for Coulter-
ville though it was with sincere regret that we bid good-
by to ‘‘Crocker’s. Old man Hamilton was waiting for
us when we got to his place for lunch and wanted to
know what luck we had had with the deer. He seemed
genuinely pleased when we showed him our head. But
it was time to be stirring if we hoped to reach Coulter-
ville before dark and we set out for our destination,
which we reached without further incident.

WITH THE CONNECTICUT TROUT

WO of my friends, the ‘‘Dude’’ and Tobin, one
April day persuaded me to try bait fishing for
trout in the brooks of New London and adjacent
counties. I soon became as ardent a fisherman as either
of my instructors, and we made together many excur-
sions, successful and otherwise. Certain of these trips
deserve special mention, which explains this narrative.

At ‘‘Jim Dixon’s.”’

It was after 6 A. M. when I shut off the motor at
Jim Dixon’s or Campbell’s Mills, which consisted of
Dixon’s house, two other cottages and the sawmill that
Jim ran. Tobin took us in and introduced us to Dixon,
as fine a sportsman as you ever met, who induced us
to try an ege-nog (cider, eggs and sugar beaten up
together) for luck, and said we could fish his brook on
condition only that we lunched with him that noon.

A stretch of this brook flowed out of the mill-pond
near Dixon’s house and there we started in, Tobin
standing on the flashboard of the mill-dam and dropping
his line in the pool beneath, the Scribe fishing under the
bridge where the road crossed the brook, and the

‘‘Dude’’ wading into the stream near the sawmill and
54

WITH THE CONNECTICUT TROUT 55

floating his bait down into a dark pool where a big
boulder checked the current. Dixon, himself, tried to
pilot me, and we did our best to find a trout under that
old bridge, but if he was there he didn’t feel hungry
for he left us severely alone.

Tobin, however, had hardly dropped his line over the
dam before he had a strike which bent the tip of his
rod and caused the taut line to cut through the water
like a knife. After a short struggle he landed a nice,
fat trout just long enough to keep, and dropped his line
in again. A second strike, and he quickly landed the
mate of his first fish.

In the meantime I had fished several pools below the
bridge and the ‘‘Dude’’ had fished to the end of the
swift water but nary a trout, so we joined Tobin and
walked over to where an upper stretch of the brook ran
into the pond. Here the ‘‘Dude’’ caught his first fish. a
small one, and Tobin lost a beauty that tied his line up
in a pile of brush and broke away. J, as usual, got
nothing but experience and spent most of my time re-
newing the hooks lost in the numerous snags.

Dixon now harnessed up his old grey mare and drove
us over to the upper part of Mount Misery Brook. We
decided that the man who gave the brook its name did
so after driving out there over the rocks, stumps and
ruts that formed the road. It was a deep, narrow and
swift-running brook which flowed out of a large pond
and under a heap of rotten lumber, all that remained
of an old sawmill. There were only a few hundred feet

56 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

of this brook that we could fish from the bank as it
soon widened out into a small river too deep to wade,
but Dixon showed us a tiny stream nearby, tributary to
the Mount Misery Brook, and said it was full of small
trout. So there was work enough ahead of us to last
till lunch time.

The ‘‘Dude’’ was high man at the Mount Misery
Brook—Tobin and I drew blanks. The former sat down
on an old log and worked his line into the few yards of
black water that showed among the debris of the old
mill. It was not long before he had a strike and I felt
sure he would be tied up on one of the many snags
that infested this part of the brook, but he was too old a
hand to be caught that way and soon landed a small
trout, carefully taking in the slack with his left hand
and paying no attention to the reel. He caught two
more without changing his position, one of which
weighed over half a pound, and did not get snagged
once. I know that if I had been trying to fish the same
place I would have lost a hook before I could wet my
line.

The next place on the program was the small tribu-
tary brook. This we divided into three sections and
agreed to meet Dixon at a certain bridge in about two
hours—lunch time. It was a case of wading the brook
and I made a good beginning by slipping on a moss-
covered stone and falling prone on my back in the
middle of the stream. I was good and wet and after-
wards chose the sunniest places I could find to fish in.

WITH THE CONNECTICUT TROUT 57

Perhaps this was the reason that I arrived at the bridge
without a fish in my creel, while the ‘‘Dude’’ was there
with five little fellows and Tobin soon hove in view with
six more. We then headed the old mare for Dixon’s
and lunch.

Mrs. Dixon was ready for us with a huge meal of
which the ‘‘Dude’’ and Tobin partook so bountifully
that they were incapacitated for fishing purposes for at
least two hours. I took care of my share of the gouod
food but when the others reached for a second piece of
apple pie, I slipped out of the door, grabbed my rod
and made for the dam where Tobin had caught his first
two fish that morning. I waded cautiously out on the
flashboard and dropped my line in the pool below the
fall. A baby trout, some three inches long, took the
bait, but dropped off half-way up the dam. Loud cheers
from Dixon’s door where stood Dixon himself, Tobin
and the ‘‘Dude’’ greeted this performance. I baited my
heok with a nice, fat night-crawler and dropped in
again. <A small trout, which looked like a minnow but
later proved to be six inches, flashed out of the water
on the end of my line and landed safely on the bank of
the mill-pond above the dam. The cheering throng
from Dixon’s swept down on me as I took the trout off
the hook and escorted me with my prize in triumph to
our car which stood in Jim’s yard. There we shook
hands with our good hosts, cranked the motor, and got
under way for Pratt’s meadow.

58 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

Here we found a deep, slow-running brook where the
‘‘Dude’’ and Tobin each caught a quarter-pound trout.
The stream was fringed with alders and J caught more
of them than I did trout—but what did that matter, I
had caught one trout on my first day—‘‘Sufficiency.’’

It started to rain on our way home and as we passed
a tiny pond faintly visible through the heavy brush
alongside the road, Tobin exclaimed, ‘‘Whoa! There’s
the spring-hole where Oscar Palmer caught his nice
string just such a day as this.’’ I sat in the car while
Tobin and the ‘‘Dude’’ started for the pond. There
was an outlet concealed by blackberry bushes and the
overhanging boughs of a clump of white birches. Her>
a little rivulet tumbled out of the pond into a small,
black pool which looked so tempting to Tobin that he
worked the tip of his rod through the brush and dropped
his line in to see what was doing. A swirl in the dark
water and the first big fish of the day seized his bait.
To and fro, back and forth across the pool swished the
trout, and when he ceased his struggles, Tobin, keeping
a steady strain on the line with his left hand, parted the
brush with his right, and tried thus to land his fish.
Unhappily his line caught on a root, the trout made a
final lunge and broke away. Tobin was sure he weighed
over a pound. After waiting a few minutes he dropped
his line in the pool a second time and again lost the big
fish on a snag. A third time brought better results for
after a sharp struggle Tobin landed a nice trout that
weighed a little over three-quarters of a pound when we

WITH THE CONNECTICUT TROUT 59:

got home. The big fellow, however, had had struggle
enough for one day and would not take hold again.

In the meantime the ‘‘Dude’’ had been trying his
luck in the pond. He had waded out through the muddy
bottom up to his waist and after waiting a few minutes
for the water to clear, had started casting out in the
pond as far as he could. After making a cast, he would
reel the bait slowly towards him, giving it plenty of
time to settle well in the water, and by this practice
he succeeded in making fast to a nice three-quarter
pounder. It was the prettiest sight of the day—that
animated line cutting back and forth through the still
surface of the pond, till it brought up on the stony bank
with the flopping beauty. The back of this last trout
was nearly black and the red spots on his side were
very bright. I thought I might do likewise and joined
the ‘‘Dude’’ in the pond but I must have been a hoodoo,
for neither of us had another strike and the ‘‘Dude’s’’
fish was the last trout caught that day.

At ‘‘Bob Rood’s.’’

It was before daybreak that early spring morning
when we knocked at the door of Bob Rood’s little white
cottage to ask permission to fish the stream. A gruff
voice answered Tobin’s knock with ‘‘Who in h——l’s
there?’’

At Tobin’s answer the voice said, ‘‘Come right in,’’
and turning the handle we walked into the kitchen where

60 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

an oil lamp burned dimly. The half-open door into
the next room gave us a glimpse of the old four-poster
bed where Bob and his wife were still reposing. When
we appeared, however, Bob placed his foot against his
wife’s back and pushed her out of bed, growling out,
‘‘Hustle, Mary, and mix these gentlemen an egg-nog.’’
Mary, without adding to her raiment, mixed the concoc-
tion—eges beated up with cider—and we made it our
duty to consume a goodly quantity, though I must con-
fess that it hardly hit the right spot at 4 A. M. In the
meantime, Bob, himself, slid out of bed and stood before
us. He was a charcoal burner and that part of his
person exposed by his short and very dirty night-shirt
gave ocular proof that he turned out the genuine article.

‘‘Of course you can fish the brook,’’ he said, ‘‘but
wait till I get you some decent bait.’’ Then, clad only
in his night-shirt, he opened the door, hobbled—for he
was crippled by rheumatism—to the cow-barn, and
grasping a pitchfork walked about in the cow-yard, until
ke had unearthed a quantity of nice fat worms. ‘‘Now
there,’’ said he, ‘‘is some bait that is all right—go try
your luck.’’

Bob Rood’s Brook is a narrow but deep and swift-
flowing stream which finds its source in a small mill-
pond a quarter of a mile from Bob’s house. From there
it gurgles merrily down its. winding channel some four
miles, alternately through woods and meadows, until it
empties into Pachaug Pond. We fished first in the long
rolling meadow in front of Bob’s door but our utmost

WITH THE CONNECTICUT TROUT 61

efforts resulted in only two small trout, one each for
the ‘‘Dude’’ and Tobin. Next we waded the stream
through the woods nearby, as the brush was too thick
to allow fishing from the banks. Nothing was added to
our score until we struck into a second meadow where
the brook rippled cheerily on between two rows of
alders. I landed one small fish but threw him back as
he was under size.

A small tributary joined the main stream a short dis-
tance from the edge of the woods, and Tobin and I
worked our way through the brush along this smaller
brook until we reached a tiny waterfall thirty feet from
the back door of a large white farm house. I crept up
to the edge of the pool below the fall, and standing
back of a huge oak tree, dropped my line in the water.
Tobin tried his luck under the dilapidated stone wall
where the brook hurried out of the lot. I soon felt a
tug on the line but struck too hard and jerked the hook
out of the fish’s mouth. However, he must have been
pretty hungry as he took hold again when I had baited
up and this time I landed him, a fat little quarter-pound
trout. J had heard nothing from Tobin, though I could
see him dimly through the brush, but when I called out,
‘‘Got one,’’ he answered, ‘‘ Me, too.’’

I went to work again below him and fished back to
the main brook, landing two nice half-pounders on the
way. The first I caught in a brush-hidden pool where I
let my bait drift with the current down under the droop-
ing branches and had hard work to keep from getting

62 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

‘‘snagged.’? The other took hold under an overhanging
bank where I crept up on my hands and knees and then
poked my rod over the edge with a few feet of line
dangling from it into the brook. Tobin caught one more
small trout in the little stream and the ‘‘Dude,’’ who
had fished the main brook nearly to its junction with
the tributary, had four, one of which weighed nearly
three-quarters of a pound.

I next fished under the alders where the little brook
joined the big one, landing two little fellows in quick
succession, then hustled down the brook after Tobin and
the ‘‘Dude,’’ who had gone on ahead. I soon caught up
with Tobin whom I found standing quietly behind some
brush at the edge of the brook. He motioned me to
approach very carefully and pointed to a dark shadow
in the water near an old log. ‘‘That trout,’’ he whis-
pered, ‘‘will weigh over a pound and I am going to get
him.’’ He stole back from the brook and crossed it a
few hundred yards above; he then worked his way down
on his hands and knees to the edge of the bank a short
distance from the old log. I stood still behind the brush
on the further bank and watched. Presently Tobin
pushed forward his rod and his bait slid into the water
without a ripple. ‘‘Just a minute,’’ thought I, ‘‘and
he’ll have him.’’ ‘‘Splash!’’ The old log which was
resting very gingerly against the bank fell back into
the pool, disturbed by his slight motion, and the trout
darted out of sight. ‘‘Damn it!’’ grunted Tobin, ‘‘that’s
the best one I’ve seen this year.’’

WITH THE CONNECTICUT TROUT 63

In the next stretch of woods the ‘‘Dude’’ caught two
small trout, Tobin three and I none. I worked hard to
equal the others and finally snapped the tip of my rod
while trying to work loose a hook that had caught on
a branch on the further side of the brook. This put
me out of the competition and I sat down on an old
stump with my back against a birch sapling and lighted
my pipe while Tobin fished on towards Pachaug Pond
and the ‘‘Dude’’ tried a little stream nearby that seemed
alive with small trout. I soon dozed off in the warm
noonday sun and slept soundly for an hour or more.
When I awoke I noticed two small animals in front of
me, perhaps fifty yards distant. Being still drowsy, I
at first took them for a yearling heifer and a small calf,
then as I became wider awake and noticed their long,
round ears and the constant whisking of their short
tails like white flags behind them, I realized that they
were deer. The wind was blowing towards me and I
sat quietly watching them for some time.

I soon reached the bridge at the lower end of the
brook and it was not long before Tobin and the ‘‘Dude’’
joined me. The latter reached me first with four nice
trout that he had caught in the little brook. He said
he had landed a number of others but had put them back
in the water as they were less than six inches long.
Tobin arrived shortly with as many more as proof of
his diligence since leaving me. Somebody said, ‘‘Let’s
beat it,’’? and as the contents of our creels were sufficient
for the various tomorrow’s breakfasts, we started the
motor and headed the old car towards home.

THE BIG TROUT OF DEEP RIVER
BROOK

AKING its rise in the laurel-clad Colchester hills,

and ending its turbulent course in the deep, still

pools of the boggy meadows where it meets
Exeter Brook, Deep River has always been one of my
favorite Connecticut trout streams. There are many
others where a day’s fishing will produce more fish, but
if I want the big fellows, Deep River is my choice. This
is particularly so on a sunny day in early May when
ths swamp azalea blooms along its banks.

On such a day Church and I got into action at the
upper bridge, ‘‘Will’’ going ahead to try a few pools
in the woods, while I prospected the swift water below
the bridge. The black, foam-flected eddy resulted in a
goose egg as did the sunlit shallows below. In one
shallow pool I scored a strike but failed to hook the
trout. I rested the fish a minute, then rebaited and
tried him again. He started to make a dash at my
worm when a dark shadow scared Mr. Trout so badly
that he darted out of reach like a bullet. The owner of
the shadow, a small boy who was plainly much interested

in the fishing, stood on the bank. He was clad in two
64

THE BIG TROUT OF DEEP RIVER BROOK 65

dirty garments, a once-white shirt-waist, and a tattered
pair of trousers remarkable for the fact that it took so
little to hold them together. This urchin chattered a lot
of gibberish at me which sounded like Anglicized Rus-
sian Yiddish, but I could catch only one word, ‘‘ Wums.’’
Finally I made out that the youngster himself wanted
to fish, and would I give him one of my night-crawlers?
To get rid of him I passed over two fine, fat wrigglers
and he scampered off up the bank only to reappear in
a few minutes, this time holding a short willow switch
terminating in a bent pin. By his gestures and some-
thing that sounded like ‘‘Put ’im on,’’ he led me to
understand that he wanted my assistance in baiting his
hook. I impaled one of his worms on the pin, he slipped
the other inside his waist for safe keeping, and then
made off to try his luck upstream. I hurried in the
opposite direction, resolved to land my next strike with-
out interruption.

Just above the old dam where I had planned to meet
Church was a long stretch of still water. I waded out
into the middle of the brook and fished the ripples at
the head of this pool, losing one small trout and losing
another before I went on.

At the dam I stopped again. Below me the stream
swept suddenly to the right and the current, divided by
a ledge jutting out from the bank, formed two eddies
which swirled back towards me, one on either side of
the brook. JI tried the right-hand eddy first and my
bait had hardly disappeared in the troubled waters at
the rocky point when it was captured by a trout. I

66 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

worked the fish into the shallow water near me where
the sunlight streaming down through an opening in the
trees overhead showed me the dark form darting over
the bright sandy bottom. As his struggles grew weaker
and weaker, I drew him up on the beach and dropped
him on the wet moss at the bottom of my ereel. Nota
big trout, but one that weighed a little over a quarter
of a pound. The mate to this fish was waiting in the
other eddy, and soon came to basket though the water
there was as black as ink, and I could not see the fish
until I lifted him out of the water and up over the little
dam.

Three to start with, though I had taken some time
to catch them and would have to slight the next piece
of woods fishing if I wished to take proper care of the
meadow below. I wondered how Church had fared, and
sat down on an old log with my pipe between my teeth
and waited his coming. The muffled drumming of a
partridge sounded from the woods in front of me, a blue-
jay scolded from the pine stump at my side, my eyes
were blinking drowsily in the warm sunshine when a
twig snapped and Church came into view.

‘“‘Did you get any?’’ was his first remark. |

‘‘Three,’’ said I, and showed him the contents of my
basket with some little pride. ‘‘How did you make
out?’’

‘‘T got one pretty good one up in that meadow’’ was
his answer as he reached into the back pocket of his
old canvas shooting jacket.

THE BIG TROUT OF DEEP RIVER BROOK 67

I could tell by the difficulty he experienced in getting
the fish out that it was a big fellow, but was unprepared
for the beauty that he finally worked loose—just a
shade under a full pound was the scale’s verdict when
we got home. ‘‘Jingo!’’ thought I, ‘‘I would surely
like to catch one of those big ones.’’

We hurried through the woods and did not fish all
the pools, though some were likely looking haunts for
big trout. Our experience in the past had shown us
that on Deep River Brook the cream of the fishing was
in the big meadow ahead of us and we lost no time in
getting there before ‘‘old Dan Sisson’’ or some other
wily angler forestalled us. I added one fish, a quarter-
pounder, to my score, pulling him out of a deep hele
under a fallen tree-top, but it was ‘‘slim pickings’’ to
fish behind Church and I ran on after him.

At the head of the meadow Church crossed over to
the west side of the brook while I stayed on the west.
On account of the thick brush along the banks of the
stream it was only possible to fish the best pools from
one side or the other, and our arrangement precluded
our both fishing the same hole.

I fished some distance without success. There had
been recent heavy rains which had swollen the volume
of water in the brook and I feared had increased the
food supply to such an extent that the older members
of the trout family would not be very greedy about my
night-crawlers. JI edged up to the bank and pushed the
tip of my rod through an opening in the brush, holding

68 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

it close to the water so that the bait would get a chance
to work to the bottom. As the line ran out with the

current and under a limb projecting into the stream I

felt a sharp tug. I took up the slack and worked the
lively fish away from the threatening branch. He had
quite a little play in him for a half-pounder and when I
finally landed him my spirits had risen a peg.

I fished two more likely looking spots through the
brush, but accomplishing nothing. Then [ cautiously
approached the pool where I had caught two three-quar-
ter-pound beauties the year before. This was formed
by a bend of the brook where the current had eaten out
the bank around the roots of an old willow. There
was no brush on my side of the stream and it was easy
fishing. JI waded out through the mud and lily pads at
the head of the pool and cast into the eddy, working
the bait well under the bank. Nothing rewarded my
first attempt and I rebaited with a fresh worm and
tried again. I let the line drift out rapidly and when
I started to draw it in I could tell there was a fish of
some kind tasting. I reeled off a little more line and
gave him a good chance to get a fair sample of the bait,
then struck. The rod bent double as the fish made
a rush for the lower end of the pool and I knew he was
a good one. I checked him as soon as possible as there
was a tree top in the brook below the turn and if he
reached it I would lose him. I began to wade backwards
toward the bank and the fish followed, fighting fiercely.
Once, as he was drawn into the shallow water, he made
a vicious swirl on the surface and for a minute I thought

THE BIG TROUT OF DEEP RIVER BROOK 69

I had lost him. But it was his final try for liberty
and a second later I was gloating over him on the bank.
He was not quite so large as Church’s fish, but weighed
easily three-quarters of a pound. His sides had rather
a greenish hue and the red spots were as bright as if
they had just been retouched. I slipped him in my
ereel and walked on.

Below the treetop around the bend there was some
swift water along my bank, and crawling up to the edge
through the short meadow grass, I dropped in. A fat
quarter-pound trout must have been waiting there with
his mouth open, for the bait had hardly touched the
water when I twitched it out again with Mr. Trout
hanging on.

Not far beyond here the brook widened out into a
shallow pool with a sandy bottom, and here I caught
another small trout, who must have missed his last meal,
as I lost him the first time he took hold, and he was
ready at once to try again.

It had gradually been getting darker and soon began
to rain in torrents. I hurried to leeward of a row of
big elms for shelter and stood there smoking my pipe
until the storm passed. These elms stood on a little
ridge a short distance back from the brook, and I could
see over the brush and trees into the meadow on the
other side. A small red dog with a very bushy tail held
high in the air came loping across this field and dis-
appeared in the brush before I realized that I was
watching a fox. Even had I a gun I doubt if I would

70 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

have had time to shoot when I recognized Reynard.
The rain stopped and I went on fishing. At a sharp
turn in the stream I stepped behind a shad-bush just
blossoming and cast into the current. A minute later a
mighty twitch at the line warned me that leviathan was
there. But he had missed, and when I pulled in the
line I found the bait severed clean at the hook. I re-
baited with the fattest night-crawler I could find in my
bait-box and waited a few minutes. I knew from that
first strike that it was a big fish and I was determined
to land him. I let the bait slip off the bank and into
the water so as to avoid making a splash; the swift-
running stream carried it a dozen feet below the bush
behind which I crouched, and ‘‘Oh, joy!’’ the monster
struck again. I was ready and reeled off a little line to
enable him to gobble the worm. I did not need to strike
back as the fish had hooked himself in his greedy rush,
and tore off downstream at a great rate. Some alders
grew out into the brook at the lower end of the pool
and though I tried to check him the trout dashed in
among the branches. I dropped the tip of my rod so
that the line would run clear of the limbs, which seemed
thickest at the surface, and began to reel in slowly but
steadily. At last I was lucky enough to get him clear
of the brush and had a fighting chance to land him.
What worried me most was how to get the trout out of
the brook. The stream was too deep to wade at this
point, and the banks were very abrupt; furthermore, I
had no landing net. Meantime the fish was making a

THE BIG TROUT OF DEEP RIVER BROOK 71

gallant fight for his life, rushing back and forth across
the pool. At last the strain of the line began to tell
on him and his dashes grew weaker; finally he turned
over on his side for an instant and I saw it was a case
of now or never. I reeled in all the line but a few feet,
grasped it firmly with my left hand and twitched the
big fellow out on the bank. The old steel rod doubled
right up and I was sure I had lost him, but no, the
glistening monster swung out over the grass, dropping
off the hook at my feet. I lost no time but fell on him
with both hands and then sat back to view my prize—
the biggest trout I had ever seen in this vicinity. He
weighed just one ounce over a pound and a quarter,
and with a little feeding he would have weighed nearer
two pounds as he was not as thick through as many
smaller fish I have caught. I poured the other fish out
of my creel, and placed him in the bottom ot the basket,
covering him carefully with damp moss, then replaced
the other fish.

I caught one more trout before I reached the bridge
where Church and Thompson were waiting for me.
This was a half-pounder I landed in a big pool under
the alders, where I had waded out into the brook in
order to get my line into the current. He seemed an
unimportant addition to the basket after the big fellow,
but he added to my score just the same.

Arriving at the bridge, I found Church with his eateh
strung out on the running-board of the machine. He
had five in all, including the fish he had already shown
me, three half-pounders and one quarter-pounder.

72 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

Thompson, who had been fishing from the bridge
while waiting for us, had two—one pretty trout weigh-
ing three-quarters of a pound, and one little fellow that

reached perhaps a quarter. They both called for my ~

catch, and I took them out of the basket one by one,
leaving the prize fish in the bottom. They counted
eight, including the three-quarter-pounder from the wil-
low pool, and I was high line in point of numbers, though
I could tell from Church’s expression that he was
pleased that he still had the biggest fish. I was unable
to keep my good fortune quiet for long, and I finally
drew the big fellow out of the basket.

‘‘My! but ain’t he a whopper?’’ cried Thompson.

‘‘The best one I have seen this year,’’ said Church,
while as for me, my delight was too great for words,
and J made Thompson drive the car home while I sat
in the front seat with the fish in my hand and feasted
my eyes on the prize, ‘‘The Big Trout of Deep River
Brook.’’

“D—N THAT HAWG”

HAD always been anxious to kill a wild turkey and
when my January vacation was increased I decided
to spend the last few days of it turkey hunting. <A
recent article and photographs in one of the sporting
magazines had called my attention to the fact that tur-
keys still existed along the banks of the Neuse River
in close proximity to my North Carolina ducking club,
and thither I wended my way after a week of the poorest
wildfowl shooting I ever experienced in that section.

J arrived at my destination Sunday night accompanied
by two other sportsmen from the ‘‘Nutmeg’’ state who
I had met on the train. Their host was to be the same
as mine but luckily they wanted duck shooting, which
did not conflict with my desires. ‘‘Uncle Simon’’ or
‘‘the Colonel’’ as he is generally known, met us at the
railroad station and steered us to his ‘‘home camp.”’
Our pharaphernalia tucked away and our sleeping quar-
ters located we headed for a seat around the stove in
the tiny ‘‘settin’ room.’’ There we found a crowd of
other nimrods toasting their shins and swapping yarns.
The roll-eall follows:

‘‘Uncle Jimmy’’—New York manufacturer—an old
73

74 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

friend of ‘‘Uncle Simon’s’’ and the idol of his children.

‘‘The White Man’s Hope’’—‘‘ Uncle Jimmy’s’’ shoot-
ing partner, six feet four inches of English brawn and
muscle.

‘‘The Scotchman’’—repository of Gaelic yarns and
discoverer of ‘‘The White Man’s Hope.’’

‘“‘The Ball Fan’’—Scotty’s partner—most thotougliie
versed in ‘‘batting averages’’ and the doings of the

‘“‘fancy.’’

Tom indefatigable ‘‘bird’’ hunter and authority
on shooting dogs.

Sam manager of the local lumber mill and the

Colonel’s rival in turkey lore.

The three ‘‘Nutmeggers’’ including the ‘‘Scribe’’—
‘‘nuff sed.’

‘“‘The Colonel’’—turkey expert, duck expert, bird ex-
pert and unequalled at ‘‘fightin’ chickens,’’ telling yarns,
following his professions or tending to his guests. If
you ever meet in North Carolina a small man with
regular features, bushy chesnut beard and sleepy seem-
ing blue eyes, who can yelp a turkey up out of the
atmosphere, and walk the legs off any living creature—
two-legged or four—‘‘that’s him.’’

Monday was cold and cloudy with rain and an easterly
wind. The Scotchman and his partner with my two
Connecticut friends were going duck hunting; Uncle
Jimmy and his partner and Tom, ‘‘bird’’ hunting if the
rain let up, and the Scribe ‘‘turkeying.’’ As the ducks
and turkeys ‘‘used’’ on the further side of the Neuse,

“D——_N THAT HAWG” 75.

a boat was imperative, though the Colonel’s launch was.
out of commission. Luckily for us, one of Uncle Simon’s
friends, a Yankee sportsman who spent his winters on
a small motor boat cruiser, volunteered the use of
his boat to get us over to Adams Creek, and we got
under way shortly after 9 A. M. It was a six-mile run
across the river which, with the subsequent course up
Adams Creek and into its tributary, Back Creek, con-
sumed over an hour and a half. Setting out three
stands of decoys, one each for the two Nutmeggers, the
Scotchman and his partner, and William, took nearly
as long again and it was after 1 o’clock when the Colonel
and I headed into the pines to ‘‘rastle’’ up the turkeys.

A fiock of these wily birds usually frequent a stretch
of territory several miles in extent and unless disturbed
they make a regular weekly round of this district. For
this reason if one is not thoroughly versed in the
schedule of the flock he is after, it is a good deal of a
question of luck whether he finds them or not. Of
course if the hunter who discovers their route baits
them with peas (hogs are likely to eat any corn) and
has plenty of patience he usually gets a shot within a
week or two. The turkeys probably stay in that loca-
tion a day longer when they first discover the bait and

on their next round come there a day in advance. If

they always find plenty of bait they finally give up their
‘‘route’’ and stay where the food is. This is the
hunter’s opportunity. He builds a brush blind, leaving
but one small opening through which he ean train his

76 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

gun on the feeding birds as they follow up the baited
trail and shoots their heads off as they come in range.
If you have not a flock baited, the custom is to try and
find the turkeys, flush them with dogs which are trained
to run in on them with loud barks so as to confuse the
birds and cause them to fly in different directions, build
a blind and ‘‘eall’’ the birds back.

The Colonel’s ‘‘call’’ or ‘‘yelper’’ was manufactured
out of the following—the smallest bone of a turkey’s
second joint, a piece of reed or cane such as is used for
pipe stems in many parts of the South, an old spool
and a piece of wood shaped like a horn. These are com-
bined and with this instrument the old fellow certainly
produced the most peculiar sounds; first a_ shrill
‘“cheep’’ or squeak rising gradually from a low note to
a higher and following this up with a ‘‘yelp, yelp, yelp.’’

We had two dogs with us, ‘‘Teddy’’ and ‘‘Trixie.’’
The former with her sombre brown coat was what the
Colonel called a ‘‘native setter’’ though she looked like
a combination of Irish setter and Chesapeake Bay dog.
She was young and though her experience was limited
was still a fair turkey dog. The other, a small white
setter, was simply taken along as ‘‘Teddy’’ worked bet-
ter when she had a ‘‘side partner.’’

The ground we were to hunt consisted of ‘‘ridges’’
covered with Carolina pine, intersected by numerous
swamps grown up with black gums and cedars tied to-
gether with wild grape vines and briars of all makes
and kinds. The footing in these swamps was most un-

“D——_N THAT HAWG” (ie

certain and it was usually a case of tight-rope walking
on some old tree trunk to get across. I had a sneaking
suspicion that the Colonel was trying me out to see if
IT could keep up the pace.

Unluckily the ridges where we expected to find a large
flock of turkeys—twenty-three, according to reports of
eye witnesses—had just been cut over, including a sec-
tion that the Colonel had recently ‘‘baited.’’ This meant
a long tramp to country where the birds could still
feed—‘‘mast’’ or acorns, pine cones, gall berries, etc.
Finally, as we were crossing a mud hole on the cord-
wood ties of an abandoned logging road, Uncle Simon,
who had been studying the ground most carefully, said,
‘‘Took yeah!’’ There in the soft, black ooze were the
fresh tracks of a huge old gobbler. A little further
on the Colonel called my attention to a spot where the
pine needles had been tossed about. ‘‘Scratchin’s,’’
was his comment. Then ‘‘Teddy”’’ started galloping off
at top speed and I felt sure we were going to run across
the flock, but we had arrived on the scene about a day
late and we didn’t see them.

On our way back to the boat I asked the Colonel to
try a call or two for luck as he had told me that ocea-
sionally you would get a shot by so doing. We sat
down on an old log and the ‘‘pipe of Pan’’ appeared.
The old fellow softly cleared his throat and put the in-
strument to his lips. I could see his cheeks drawn in
once or twice as he sucked on the pipe and then it came,
‘‘Peep, Pee—eeep, yawp, yawp, yawp,’’ while the tall

‘78 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

pines echoed back the strange notes. We sat there like
wooden images and listened. Then again, ‘‘Pee—eep—
yawp, yawp, yawp, yawp’’ and another long wait. No
answer only the ‘‘soughing’’ of the wind and a distant
shot from the creek.

We reached our skiff with no further incident, shoved
out to the little cruiser where we found William already
aboard as he had not fired a shot, and we chug-chugged
down the creek picking up the rest of the duck hunters.
Scotty and his partner had not fired a gun but the two
Nutmeggers had missed several chances bo not be-
ing’ prepared.

That evening the Colonel and Sam, the mill man, re-
galed us with yarns of turkey hunting. The Colonel
told of a rich sportsman from Philadelphia who had
come down to his place several years before. It seems
that this arrival had hunted turkeys in Pennsylvania,
Virginia, Florida and the middle West but had never
seen one. He had decided they were a myth or else he
was a ‘‘ Jonah’’ and he had come to North Carolina to
decide the question. The Colonel told his guest that if
he would stay with him long enough he would get him
a shot, and the guest brightened up a little but said he
had heard that before. They hunted three days, finding
plenty of sign, ‘‘scratchings,’’ ‘‘dustings’’ and ‘‘tracks”’
but no turkeys, and the Quaker began to get discouraged.
He said he had grown tired of ‘‘dustings,’’ ‘‘seratch-
ings’’ and ‘‘tracks’’—what he wanted was turkeys. The
fourth day they stayed at home as the Colonel had

“D——_N THAT HAWG” 79

nearly walked the legs off his victim, and said victim
- said he thought he had a day’s rest coming to him. The
next morning they started off again. Hardly had they
left the boat when the dog flushed a flock of turkeys.
The sportsman didn’t see the birds and told the Colonel
he would believe his story when he saw a turkey and
not before. The Colonel built a comfortabie stand and
told his guest to take a nap; that he would call him
when the time came. After about an hour and a half
the Colonel said he began to call and soon got an answer.
He wakened the sportsman and told him to get ready.
Soon in answer to the call a turkey hen came running,
‘‘velpin’ foh eve’y breff.’? The sportsman slid his gun
out through a crack in the blind, fired and there lay his
first turkey, dead. The hunter gave a yell of delight
and started to go after his prize but the Colonel stopped
him and told him to get down and keep quiet. The
Philadelphian obeyed and the Colonel kept on yelping.
Soon a big gobbler appeared and the sportsman downed
him. Uncle Simon killed the third—another hen—at the
hunter’s request and the fun continued. Nine chances
did that Quaker sportsman have and killed five turkeys
including the Colonel’s. At the end, according to the
story, the fellow acted like a crazy man, whooping and
yelping, embracing the Colonel and shooting his gun off
every few minutes while between times he drank often
and copiously from his flask to the health of the ‘‘dear
departed.”’

80 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

Another yarn was about an Eastern sportsman who
missed three good shots at turkeys with a shotgun. On
the next occasion when the dogs flushed a flock, the
Yankee was armed with a twenty-two calibre carbine.
As they crept after the birds the Colonel discovered an
old gobbler roosting in a big pine about seventy-five
yards away. Cautiously he pointed out the turkey to
the sportsman, who whispered, ‘‘I’m going to get him
right where the wing joins the body,’’ took quick aim
and fired. At the shot the gobbler tumbled to the
eround with a thud and there was the bullet hole just
at the base of the wing. As the Colonel said, ‘‘I reckon
that Yank could shoot some!’’

Sam told of a hunt he once had with his father. The
old gentleman, a famous turkey hunter, was over 70
years of age but as keen over the sport as ever. Sam
said they did not dare let the old fellow go out alone
for fear something might happen to him, and on this
occasion, after the dogs had put up a large flock of
turkeys, he fixed his father comfortably in a small stand.
Then he went off a short distance and built a blind for
himself. After waiting a while he began calling and
presently heard his father shoot twice. A little later
his father shot again. Then a hen turkey began to an-
swer Sam’s call and he thought it was going to be his
turn, but just as the bird was getting in range, his
father gave a little squeal and the bird turned and ran
off to the old gentleman. Again the sound of a gun
and in a few minutes Mrs. Turkey came galloping by ©

“D——_N THAT HAWG” 81

Sam’s stand like a racehorse. Sam jumped out of the
blind and started after her with the dog, finally came
up to the hen with her head hidden under a pile of
brush. She was wing-broken, so Sam wrung her neck
and lugged her back. When it came time to start for
home, Sam went over to get his father. ‘‘ Well, Dad,’’
said he, ‘‘killed three, didn’t you?’’

‘“No,’’ answered his father, ‘‘only got two. I knocked
down the third but she got up and ran off. Where did
you get yours? I didn’t hear you shoot?’’

‘‘T must have fired at the same time you did,’’ said
Sam.

The old gentleman couldn’t get over that and all the
way home kept saying, ‘‘ Funny I didn’t hear you shoot,’’
while Sam kept up the deception. At the supper table
that night his father told about the day’s hunt and
ended up with, ‘‘But I’ll be dogged if I can see how
Luke theah got his bird without shooting.’’

Then Sam ‘‘’fessed up’’ while his father twitted him
about his poor success and told him, ‘‘You want to
learn how to call them.’’ This egged Sam on to try
again the next day and he succeeded in killing three
gobblers. When he got home that night he threw the
birds on the porch in front of the dining-room door and
went in to see his father. The old fellow greeted him
with roars of laughter when he saw him return ap-
parently empty-handed and suggested, ‘‘Luke, you’all
had better give up turkey huntin’.’’ A few minutes later
when they stepped out on the porch to go in to supper,

82 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

Luke said, ‘‘Dad, what’s that dark lump in front of the
dining room doh?’’ His father stepped forward and
picked up the three gobblers, then turned to his son,
‘‘Pretty lucky you’ve growed so big,’’ said he, ‘‘or you
wouldn’t dared to fool yoh ole Dad.’’

Tuesday the Colonel and I got an earlier start as
most of the crowd were going ‘‘bird hunting.’’ The two
Connecticut men had another man to set them out. We
landed opposite the Winthrop lumber mill at the head
of Adams Creek and tramped through the weed-grown
fields of a deserted plantation, the ‘‘Lee Place.’’ We
climbed an old beard fence and walked along in the path
on the further side toward a big stand of Carolina pine.
The sun was shining brightly and from the myrtle
thicket sounded a sweet bird song. ‘‘Woity, woity,
woity,’’ followed at a short interval by the warble of
a bluebird and then a liquid ‘‘Toweet, toweet, toweet.”’
‘‘That’s a Carolina wren,’’ said the Colonel, ‘‘ut suah
is a sweet singer.’’

‘‘Teddy,’’ a short distance ahead of us, was ‘‘making
game.’’ ‘‘Pahtridges,’’ said the Colonel and at the
eorner of the fence we turned to the right to enter the
thick pine growth. Both dogs had run straight ahead
to a thicket of scrub pine and gall berry bushes.

‘“Teddy’’ gave a sharp bark. I heard the flapping of
heavy wings and the dark bodies of four and then five
turkeys went sailing over the treetops about eighty
yards away. ‘‘Shall I try them?’’ I cried to the Colonel.
‘*Shoot,’’ said he, and I gave them the second barrel

get sae
Saas ae:
os es —

“D——_N THAT. HAWG” 83

loaded with BB’s but they still kept on. I could see
the red wattles on one old gobbler, or at least I thought
I could, and when turkey number six rose far ahead and
started after the others, I couldn’t help exclaiming,
“D nit! If we had only kept on we would surely

have killed a pair.’’ We sprinted up to where the birds

had started in the vain hope that we might get a chance
at some skulker the dogs had not fiushed, then we
headed into the pines in the direction the flock had just
flown. As we crept through the woods the Colonel whis-
pered ‘‘ Watch the trees; you might see a turkey settin’
up on a limb,’’ but a careful search determined that the
birds had taken a long flight and were not in our im-
mediate vicinity. There was plenty of ‘‘sign’’ in the
pine thickets, and one tali tree had evidently served as
a roost.’

The Colonel was not very sanguine about cur chances
of calling up a turkey as the flock had not scattered,
but after a final circle through the brush he brought up
at a windfall and started to build a blind. It was but

a short job as the branches of the fallen trees made an

effective screen for anyone hidden behind them, and the
addition of a few pine branches and tops of laurel
brush ‘‘chinked’’ up the crevices in such shape as to
hide our motions thoroughly. I made myself comfort-
able in one corner of the structure while the Colonel
dozed in the other. The sunlight playing through the
branches, the aromatic smell of the pines and the song
of the birds lulled me to sleep. I was awakened by the

84 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

Colonel’s prelude on his turkey eall, ‘‘Yawp, yawp,
yawp.’’ A wait of a few minutes and a little squeal fol-
lowed again with ‘‘Yawp, yawp, yawp,’’ the ‘‘Chow,
chow, chow,’’ Sam termed it, ended the sonata. Uncle
Simon’s attitude was one of rapt attention, though his
closed eyes rather discredited his position. Suddenly he
opened his eyes wide as he whispered, ‘‘Did you hear
one?’’ and he called again. No answer. There was a
small peep-hole in front of me and I kept a sharp look-
out on the thicket. As I gazed I seemed to see the bald
head and scraggy neck of a turkey hen watching me
intently. I moved slightly and she disappeared. I
called the Colonel but he couldn’t see anything of her.
It was all imagination, helped out by the combination
of a pink leaf and a dead branch viewed from a certain
direction. Along towards afternoon the Colonel stood
up, shook himself, and said, ‘‘We might just as well
move on. They won’t come back here tonight.’’

Leaving the blind we started off in the direction taken
by the turkeys and on the further side of an impene-
trable cover of underbrush and briars discovered an-
other pine ridge where the dogs acted ‘‘gamey’’ and
several fresh ‘‘dustings’’ seemed to show the recent
gathering of the flock. ‘‘This is where we should have
come right away,’’ said the Colonel. ‘‘Then we would
have flushed them again and probably had a shot. That
call I heard was the old hen getting them together and
they’re miles away by now. We might as well start
back for the boat.’’

“D——_N THAT HAWG” 85

That night after supper asked the Colonel if there
weren’t a lot of mosquitoes along the Neuse in the sum-
mer time, and the Colonel said there were, but nothing
hike up in Hyde County. ‘‘Why up thah,’’ re went on,
‘fa. case come foh da coht. Uncle Lou Midget’s wife
"lowed she shoh wanted a separshun from Une’l Lou
cohse he wouldn’t leave Hyde County and de skeeters
was so monst’us bad she sholy couldn’t live thah no
moh. ‘Why, yoh Honah,’ says she, ‘w’en I go down teh
fetch a bucket of watah, I sho neff has teh draw three
buckets er skeeters befoh I git any watah.’ ’’

‘‘There certainly must be some ‘skeeters’ there,’’ said
one of the Connecticut boys. ‘‘I met an old fellow on
the train coming here named Fleetwood, who said he
knew a man in Hyde County who went to the store and
bought nine pounds of beef, and when he got home all
he had left was the skin—the ‘skeeters’ had eaten all
the beef.’’

Wednesday was Uncle Jimmy’s last day and the old
Colonel promised to go quail hunting with him and the
‘White Man’s Hope.’’ Sam, the lumber man, said he
thought he would take a day off and go turkey hunting
with me. He was ready by about 10 o’clock and took
me across the river in the lumber company’s tug. We
struck in again at the Lee place as Sam said he knew
there was a flock ‘‘usin’ ’’ back of Jim Nelson’s in ease
we didn’t find the birds we saw on Tuesday. Sam said
he had not done much walking lately but his years of
timber cruising had certainly hardened him up as he

86 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

fairly flew through the cover. We couldn’t find yester-
day’s flock and kept on towards Nelson’s. As we were
going through a thicket of young pine IJ heard the flop-
ping of many wings and started to snap at the glimpse
of a dark body sailing off. Sam whispered, ‘‘No use,
only buzzards,’’ and in a minute more we came upon
the carcass of a cow, upon which they had been gorging,
lying in a deep ditch. Among some tall pines not far
back of the Nelson house we found plenty of turkey sign
around an old hog-pen where somebody had scattered a
bushel or two of corn, but the birds themselves were
not there. Along about noon we flushed a covey of quail
and Sam made a nice right and left through the briars.
I pulled on one little hen as she whizzed past my head
but the ‘‘safety’’ was on and nothing happened.

- We tramped all afternoon with no success though Sam
knocked a grey squirrel out of the top of a tall oak.
Everywhere we found turkey sign but we couldn’t find
the birds.

The next day the Colonel made an early start. We
had decided to spend the morning looking for the flock
on the north side of Back Creek and the afternoon hunt-
ing the bunches on the Lee and Nelson places. That
morning hunt was the hardest hunt of the trip. It was
a close day and the swamps we encountered certainly
opened the pores. In one awful hole we got hung up
in the briars for nearly an hour, and when we did get
out our faces, heads and clothing were nearly torn to
pieces. Every sign was lacking on this tramp until we

(ON THAT HAWG” 87

were nearly back to the boat when we came to a place
where it looked as if the turkeys had only just been
there. We left for the other flocks, however, without
seeing the birds, though soon after I went north I re-
ceived a letter from the Colonel saying that he had
killed an eighteen-pound gobbler in this place.

Lunch finished, we started in at the Lee place and
after a long walk heard the welcome ‘‘flop, ilop’’ of big
wings and a turkey got up out of gunshot not far from
the Nelson place and flew off towards the Neuse. I had
always heard that the turkey flew in a straight line,
making it a simple matter to flush him a second time if
you noticed the direction of his flight. The bird we had
put up rather disproved this theory as after a short,
straight flight he swung off well towards the right. We
did not follow as the Colonel thought we would flush
the rest of the flock if we kept on to the old hog-pen
where Sam and I had found the bait the day before.
A quarter of a mile further ‘‘Teddy’’ began to bark
vigorously and we heard sounds of turkeys getting up
on all sides. We had glimpses of three or four dark
bodies flitting through the trees and I tried an unsuc-
cessful snap at one that was practically out of range,
but the tall pines grew so thick that we saw only a small
portion of the flock. The hog-pen provided us with a
convenient blind as it had not been used and the floor
was clean though rather damp. The Colonel was not
very optimistic as to our chances of getting a shot be-
cause it was late in the afternoon, a quarter of four, and

88 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

he feared that most of the birds had alighted in trees
where they would probably roost for the night. One
hen, however, had flown towards the river to the north
of us and he had hopes she might answer his call and
come in as the rest of the birds had scattered in other
directions. The old fellow gave me careful instructions
about keeping my head below the log sides of the blind
and not making a move, particularly if he got an answer,
and we squatted there like wooden dummies for about
half an hour. We had filled up the cracks between the
logs with bunches of pine needles and a few pine
branches but there were still many peep-holes and you
can be sure I kept a sharp lookout.

Then the Colonel began to call and immediately the
turkey hen answered, ‘‘Yup, yup, yup.’’ I stretched ont
flat on the ground, never daring to move a muscle until
Uncle Simon warned me to get ready. The bird an-
swered the call for nearly ten minutes and then went,
‘““Putt, putt. Putt, putt.’’ ‘‘Look out, she’s coming,’’
whispered the Colonel and then, ‘‘Thaar she goes.
She flew into that big pine.’’ Another call from the
little pipe, instant answer from the hen and then she
quit. An instant later a loud crackling in the under-
brush called our attention to an old hog that went
grunting by, but the racket had done it’s work—it had
frightened the hen and she wouldn’t come in.

‘*You might as well set up,’’ said the Colonel, ‘‘we’ll
have to wait till dark and see if we can get a shot at
her in the tree after she’s tucked her head under her

“D——_N THAT HAWG” 89

wing.’’ I was so stiff from the long, exciting wait in a
strained position that I could hardly move, but finally
made myself comfortable and waited for the darkness.
At 6 o’clock we crept out of the blind and tiptoed over
to the big pine where the Colonel said the hen was
‘‘roosting.’’ It was so dark that we were unable to
distinguish the bird and after a long and fruitless
scrutiny we fired two shots up into the thick branches
in the hopes of starting the turkey out. Nothing stirred
and we had to give up our quest. That three-mile
tramp to the boat through the thick woods in the pitch
darkness was a weird experience but proved the Col-
onel’s mettle as a woodsman. I had to hold one arm in
front of me to keep the boughs from striking me in the
face or eyes, but the old fellow slid along the trail with
unerring instinct, while I stumbled along at his back
practically holding on to his coat tails.

The following morning I left for the North and the
Colonel on seeing me off expressed his disappointment
that I had been so unlucky. As he put it, ‘‘I’m dogged
that you’all didn’t get ah turkey. I was certainly suah
of a shot yesterday but ‘D n That Hawg!’ ’’

My story really ends here but after I had been home
for about two weeks I received from the Colonel by
express a hen turkey. He said he and Mr. M of
New York had killed four a few days before.

THE DUDE AND I BATTERY SHOOTING
AT PAMLICO SOUND

UNDAY, the day after Christmas, saw me under
way for a trip to Pea Island, Pamlico Sound. It
was an inauspicious beginning, as we had a heavy

snowfall the night before, but I did not realize till later
that Sunday certainly was ‘‘ma Jonah day.’’ After
what I know now it would take a heap of urging to get
me started off on another shoot on Sunday.

According to my reckoning, I was due at the Island
on Tuesday, while the ‘‘Dude’’ and my cousin, who had
planned to leave New York on Friday of the same week,
should get there the following Sunday. I had already
pictured in my mind’s eye a host of ducks and geese
hanging on the club house porch to greet their view on
their arate, but the ‘‘best laid plans,’’ as the old saying
goes, ‘‘gang aft agley.’’

Due to heavy snow storms causing delay, it was
Tuesday evening when I reached Norfolk.

Wednesday morning I left Norfolk on the Norfolk &
Southern train bound for Elizabeth City. I felt like a
new man after a comfortable night and a hearty break-
fast at the ‘‘Monticello,’’ but even so, decided to risk

90

BATTERY SHOOTING AT PAMLICO SOUND of.

no further delay by waiting for the train three hours
later which was scheduled to connect at Elizabeth City
with the boat for Manteo. Happily this stage of my
journey was destined to elapse without accident, and I
arrived at my destination on time and without injury.

The sun was shining on the muddy waters of the Pas-
quotank, the air was soft and balmy; it was easy to
forget the snow and cold of old New England in the
warmth of the ‘‘Sunny South.’’ The ‘‘Hattie Creef’’
was lying alongside the wharf opposite the railroad sta-
tien and I headed that way intent on passing the time
of day with ‘‘Captain Johnson.’’ The dock was littered
with freight and express and I had my eyes open for
game shipments; nor was I disappointed. Directly in
front of me loomed a large crate from which resounded
the honking and cackling of a score of ‘‘Canadas.’’
‘‘Hor the park in Philadelphia,’’ said the agent, ‘‘but
what do you think of these?’’ He pointed first to the
bodies of two small Virginia deer, a five-point buck and
a doe, and then pushing aside a packing case or two, to
the careass of a huge ‘‘she bear.’’ ‘‘Came from down
Washington way,’’ said he.

As I was gaping at the long claws and mouthful of
fangs displayed by old ‘‘Mother Bruin,’’ a familiar
voice drawled, ‘‘ Waal, stranger, glad to see yer,’’ and
I looked up to see the sinewy figure of my friend
‘‘Cap’n Johnson.’’ A few remarks about the weather,
a few queries about old friends and the chances for a
successful shoot, and we gravitated to the cabin of the

92 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

‘‘Creef’’? where my small flask was made considerably
lighter.

My guns and baggage were stowed aboard by one
of the darky roustabouts; then, as the Captain seemed
busy getting a quantity of building material for Manteo
aboard the boat, I left him, and filling my pipe, sat down
on a packing case to enjoy a quiet smoke in the sunshine.
But not for long, for soon a cold northwest wind sprang
up, the sky clouded over, blotting out the sun, and it
began to snow. I changed my seat to the neighborhood
of the stove in the agent’s office on the dock and waited
for starting time. At last it came. The ‘‘Creef’’ cast
off and chugged down the river through the thickening
snow for Roanoke Island and Manteo.

Three hunters, two men and a boy, had joined us upon
the arrival of the noon train from Norfolk, and they,
with a couple of other passengers, made up our little
company. I soon got into conversation with one of my
fellow nimrods, and discovered that he was a New York
lawyer, who with his son and partner were bound for
their houseboat, ‘‘The Ark,’’ which they expected to
find in Mill Creek, near Wanchese. Carpenter, my new
acquaintance, had been coming to Pamlico Sound for a
good many years and had belonged, during its short
existence, to some shooting club at the south end of
Roanoke. This club, according to his story, had been
buncoed by its local representative to such an extent
that it soon found itself without any shooting grounds
save a few ‘‘goosin’ lumps’’ on the Bodie Island shore.

BATTERY SHOOTING AT PAMLICO SOUND 93;

Those were not a sufficient drawing card to keep up the
annual dues; the little schooner, ‘‘The Brant,’’ which
brought the members from Elizabeth City was sold, and
the club died a natural death. Shortly afterwards, a
sickly New Yorker, who was cruising about the Sound
in his houseboat in search of health, failed to accomplish
his purpose and Carpenter purchased his outfit—hence
‘<The Ark.”’

I had been so interested in the history of ‘‘The Ark’’
that I had paid little attention to the weather or to our
progress, but these matters were now brought vividly to
my attention. The door slammed open with a crash
and in whirled a cloud of snowflakes and ‘‘Cap’n John-
son.’’ ‘‘Boys,’’ said he, ‘‘I reck’n I’m gwine to dis’p’int
yer, but it’s snowin’ thicker’n Hades, that deck load of
iron for the jail has set mah compass at least five p’ints
out, and I ’low Elizabeth City’s the place for us.’’

Johnson then headed the old ‘‘Creef’’ back for her
dock which we reached in about an hour. The two pas-
sengers boarded the next train for Norfolk, while the
nimrods, after an interview with the ‘‘Creef’s’’ captzin,
in which he promised to notify us before he made an-
other start for Manteo, scoured Elizabeth City for a
square meal. We brought up at a small Greek restau-
rant and were pleasantly disappointed at all the good
things set before us. Oyster stew and broiled quail on
toast fairly melted away before our ravenous appetites,
and then the Captain appeared with the welcome news
that the snow squall had blown over and he was going
to start for Roanoke.

94 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

This time we reached our destination without further
delay, and tied up at the Manteo dock at 9:30. I said
good-bye to Carpenter, whose launch was waiting to
take him and his party to ‘‘The Ark’’ at Mill Creek
and made my way to the ‘‘Tranquil House.’’ ‘‘Cap’n
Jesse’’ had given up waiting for me and gone home but
good Mrs. Evans saw that I was well fed and had a
warm feather bed for the night. The only thing that
disturbed my sleep was Cap’n Johnson’s parting remark
as I left the ‘‘Creef’’: ‘‘I reckon you boys won’t get
to Pea Island tomorrow; it is going to: come off cold
and the Sound will likely freeze over.’’

It surely was cold the next morning, and on looking
out of my window at 7:30, I could still see the ‘‘Creef’’
at her dock, although she was due to leave for Elizabeth
City at 5. Furthermore, I could see a line of foam that
marked the edge of the ice far out from the shore.

After breakfast ‘‘Cap’n Jesse’’ arrived and J imme-
diately sounded him as to the possibility of getting down
to Pea Island. He said he would make an attempt to
reach the club, but thought we would find it impossible
to break our way through the ice to the shore when we
got off the island. If we were successful and had to
return to Manteo against a head wind, the motor boat
might ‘‘log up’’ with ice to such an extent that we would
be caught in the freeze out in the Sound. This was not
a cheerful prospect and when a telephone query to the
Pea Island Life Saving Station brought back the answer
that the ice extended over a mile from shore off the club

BATTERY SHOOTING AT PAMLICO SOUND 95

house, I decided to wait for the ‘‘break-up.’’ I strolled
over to Meekin’s store with ‘‘Cap’n Jesse’’ and drawing
up a chair near the stove, toasted my toes and listened
to the old timers spin yarns about a cold spell ten years
previous which lasted two weeks, when the Sound froze
solid and it was possible to cross over on the ice from
Roanoke to Bodie Island. These yarns were not very
encouraging, neither did I relish the fact that my ‘‘wet
goods’’ and tobacco, which would have helped to while
away the time, were reposing at the club house, as I had
expressed them ahead to lighten my load.

The following morning dawned ‘‘clear and colder.’’
The ice now extended as far as you could see and there
was not a sign of life out on the Sound save where a
small flock of swan flying by, shimmered in the sun off
the mouth of Manteo Harbor. At the wharf in front of
the ‘‘Tranquil House’’ lay a government boat named
the ‘‘Gretchen,’’ and her ‘‘chief,’’ a crony of ‘‘Cap’n
Jesse’s,’’ asked us aboard. She was a tidy little motor
cruiser, about fifty feet waterline, equipped with a thirty-
horse-power engine and comfortable quarters for a crew
of five or six men. Her captain, a graduate of Cornell,
employed in survey work for a new chart of Pamlico
Sound, made the morning slip by so pleasantly that it
was lunch time before we realized it.

After luncheon I was smoking a quiet pipe in Meekin’s
store, when I spied the New Yorker, Carpenter, and his
partner, striding down the village street. They greeted
me with open arms and asked me to spend the rest of

96 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

my enforced sojourn on Roanoke with them on ‘‘The
Ark.’’ Did I accept? Manteo and the old ‘‘Tranquil
House’’ saw only a flitting shadow as I hustled after my
‘‘friends in need’’ on their tramp to Wanchese and Mill
Creek. It was a long eight-mile walk and when finally
we were assembled in the tiny cabin of the good ship
‘‘Ark’’ I had lots of dust in my throat and plenty of
room under my belt. Carpenter settled the first with
the contents of a long glass crowded with tinkling ice,
and filled the latter void with fried chicken, yams, baked
beans and other good things from the commissary. Soon
after, Ben Cohoon, the captain of the craft, superin-
tended the setting up of two cots in the saloon and we
turned in.

Saturday, ‘‘darn the luck,’’ the ice seemed thicker
than ever. Carpenter suggested tramping through the
marsh near the creek with the object of bagging a snipe
or two, and off we went. We had hardly left the landing
before a bird flushed on Carpenter’s left, to drop dead
at the crack of his gun. This seemed to presage good
luck, but nevertheless we got back to the boat without
another shot.

Sunday morning I was awakened in the ‘‘wee small
hours’? by a thumping and creaking which seemed to
demand an investigation. I stuck my head out of the
hatchway and saw that a heavy swell was pounding in
from the eastward and the ice had disappeared. No
sleep for the weary after that and I fear that I made
myself decidedly unpopular by dragging the rest of the

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BATTERY SHOOTING AT PAMLICO SOUND 97

party out of their berths to view the welcome sight.
Breakfast dispatched, Carpenter’s two motor launches
made fast to ‘‘The Ark’’ and started to tow her and
her family of battery boats, batteries and decoys to Pea
Island. On our voyage we saw a few flocks of bluebills
and some geese, though nothing like the raft of fowl
that had greeted me on previous trips. Shortly after
noon we came to anchor in Baum’s Slough, where I was
picked up by ‘‘Cap’n Jesse’’ and chug-chugged ashore.
At the club house a telegram from my cousin and the
‘‘Dude’’ stated that they would be off the mouth of the
slough at 5 o’clock and Jesse started back for them. I
toasted my toes at the stove and listened to the guides’
stories of the shooting I had missed by not ‘‘getting
there’’ before the freeze. According to their accounts,
Wednesday afternoon, the day of the snow-storm, the
fowl had been driven ashore in such numbers that one
could have killed geese, black ducks and ‘‘sprig’’ until
he was tired. Another tale that made me think hardly
of my lost time was the wonderful battery shooting on
Saturday, when ‘‘Randy’’ Farrell, the market gunner,
‘‘tied out’’ as the ice started to break up about noon,
and picked up one hundred and forty ducks, over forty
of them redheads, with one hundred and eighty shells.
Still, I had a week ahead of me to make up for what I
had lost, so why worry.

The rest of the party arrived in due time and after
a hasty supper made plans for the morrow, and soon
‘hit the pillow.’’ They had suffered practically no de-

98 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

lay, for though they had been forced to spend one night
in Elizabeth City, as the ‘‘Creel’’ was not running, they
had succeeded Sunday morning in chartering a ‘‘sea-
going’’ motor boat which had brought them directly to
Pea Island.

There was a light southwest breeze stirring when we
rose at 5 Monday morning and we decided to put out
two outfits. The ‘‘flip up’’ of a nickel decided that
Cousin Henry should take care of one battery while the
‘‘Dude’’ and I took turns in looking after the other.
We rallied several rafts of bluebill and redhead as we
glided over Rock Shoal and soon cut loose Cousin and
his battery with John Etheridge and Eddie Wise to
‘‘tend’’ in the sailing skiff. It seemed as if a few of
the fowl we had started might return to eall on the
combination. The ‘‘Dude’’ and I with the other battery
and the motor boat and with ‘‘Cap’n Jesse’’ and Payne
to look out for us ran off some distance to the southward
and were shortly set out and ready for business.

I went in the battery first and after keeping careful
watch for over half of my two-hour period without see-
ing a duck coming my way, I closed my eyes for a minute.
I opened them with a start on hearing a soft ‘‘Queek,
queek,’’ and sure enough, there, with her white spotted
head dipping up and down, was a small female bluebill
swimming around among the decoys. I sat up in the
box and threw the little Scott to my shoulder, but she
still kept swimming and diving among her stupid neigh-
bors. At last, when I rose to my feet, Madame Bluehill

BATTERY SHOOTING AT PAMLICO SOUND 99

decided to depart in haste, but the chance was an easy
one—she fell at my first barrel and bobbed away to lee-
ward. I had to shoot twice to kill the next bluebill, an-
other single, and wing-broke a third, just as the ‘‘Dude’’
came up to take his spell. He didn’t have much better
luck and when I went in again at 2 P. M. our total score
was six bluebill and one redhead. In the afternoon the
shooting grew a little better, though all my chances
were at single birds and bluebills at that. However,
mighty few got away and I could not have said as much
if the birds had come in bunches. When we took up we
counted nineteen bluebill and five redheads, the last to
the credit of the ‘‘Dude.’’ We picked up Cousin and
his party on the way in and took a look at the bag. His
luck was no better than ours and though he had sixteen
birds, ten of them were ‘‘coots’’ and other ‘‘trash’’
ducks. Altogether, our first day’s luck might have been
a little better.

That night ‘‘Cap’n Jesse,’’ who had been fidgetting
about the barometer for some time without saying any-
thing, suddenly exclaimed, ‘‘D n it, boys, I hate to
say it, but we’ll have easterly wind tomorrow and you
all know what that means—no ducks.’’ We _ pooh-
poohed the suggestion and slept the sleep of the just,
but morning proved the truth of the prophecy, as the
wind was blowing hard from the northeast and the tide
in the Sound was so far out that you could barely sze
the edge of the flats. Cousin and I decided to accom-
pany Jesse on a tramp over the club’s land north of the

100 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

house, while the ‘‘Dude’’ was stationed in a ‘‘bury-box’’
with a stand of goose decoys, near ‘‘Goosin’ Island.’’

At the north end of Pea Island, near the Oregon Inlet
Life Saving Station, Cousin called my attention to a
solitary black duck settling down in a piece of marshy
ground and I headed in that direction. The bird flushed
at some distance from me on my right, though I was
lucky enough to double him up with my first shot. I
kept on toward a small pond ahead of me and soon I
jumped another ‘‘black.’’ I felt very sure of this duck,
as it got up so close I could nearly strike it with my
eun, but it seemed to bear a charmed life and hurried
away unscathed, while both barrels hurled number 6’s
in its direction.

On our way back to the club house we picked up the
‘‘Dude,’’ who was rather wearied of his unsuccessful
wait in that ‘‘blasted coffin,’’ as he termed the ‘‘bury
box.’’ Cousin relieved him for the few hours remaining
before dark, but with no better luck, and my one black
duck was the only score.

Wednesday the wind was still fresh from the east-
ward. Cousin joined Jesse in trip to the south end of
the island, while the ‘‘Dude”’ and I, with John Etheridge
and Payne, started out with the battery. The fowl
seemed to be trading between the Turtle Bed Flats and
Rock Shoal and we tied out in the ‘‘flyway.’’ I think
we would have prospered better if we had set out where
the birds were ‘‘using,’’ but we didn’t realize this until

BATTERY SHOOTING AT PAMLICO SOUND 101

it was too late to change our location. There was a
strong tide setting in across our layout and as the wind
was light the stool were heading every which way. The
‘‘Dude’”’ killed two bluebill during his trick, while I sat
in the motor boat and gathered oysters with an old
rake. They certainly tasted good, fresh from the salty
waters of the Sound, and better still were the oyster
erabs, which seemed to live in every oyster. At about
2 o’clock I relieved the ‘‘Dude,’’ who went off with the
motor boat to rally some of the fowl. He was success-
ful and the air was soon full of numerous bunches
of ducks, both redhead and bluebill, all heading in my
direction. I lay low and got ready for action, but tne
unnatural position of the decoys did its work and flock
after flock flared off just when I was sure they were
coming in. Finally, after waiting in vain for some of
the birds to swing in over the decoys, I began shooting
at anything that came anywhere within range. The re-
sult was discouraging. Time and time again I would
drop one and two ducks out of the hurrying bunches,
but nearly all crippled and out of range where they had
dropped, so I had no opportunity to shoot them again.
The most disappointing part of it was that nearly all
the fowl were redhead, and the multitude of crippies
escaping to leeward was most disheartening. As I re-
member the result, Payne and John Etheridge picked
up six redheads and four bluebills out of the twenty-six
birds I had down.

102 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

The next morning Cap’n Jesse picked up seven red-
heads and five dead bluebills where they had drifted
ashore. My shooting had been at birds too far away.

It was the rule at Pea Island to determine the choice
of points, guides and dogs for the following morning
by cutting the cards the evening before. Once I eut with
Leroy Davis, the president of the club, and ‘‘Old Bob’’
Smith, the clerk of the County Court. Davis tried first
and got a queen, ‘‘Old Bob’’ caught a king and I topped
them both with an ace. I also won choice of guides and
took Howard, reserving choice of points till morning.

In the morning the wind was to the southwest and on
Howard’s advice I chose South Point as great strings
of redheads had been trading through the pass between
this point and Cedar Island. J made this decision some-
what against my will as the day before I had killed the
first ‘‘canvas’’ of the season at Gordon’s Bend, pulling
him down from high up in the air with the big eight
gauge. Also the grass was all ‘‘tore up’’ in the deep
water off the Bend, sure sign of canvas ‘‘using’’ there.
However, we went to South Point, Davis to Gordon’s
Bend and Bob Smith to Lane’s. We had hardly set out
when the fog shut in so thick we could hardly see the
stool and hung on till noon. This spoiled our morning
redhead flight and all we killed that day was one red-
head and one goose.

‘‘T wonder what Mr. Davis got at Gordon’s,’’ was
Howard’s first remark when we started for home.

At the club-house door both Davis and Smith met us,
anxious to see our bag, and I glimpsed a poorly econ-

BSR BS Se

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BATTERY SHOOTING AT PAMLICO SOUND 103

ecealed grin when they saw its slimness. The followed
me into the gun-room with smiling faces. Ye gods!
What a sight! T'wenty-six ‘‘canvas’’ lay in state before
my eyes. Didn’t I wish I had chosen Gordon’s Bend
when I heard their story! Davis had had canvas falling
all over his stool and had come home to lunch when the
fight was thickest. Also he had done wretched shoot-
ing, though he had bagged sixteen. ‘‘OQs’’ Moore, who
had been with him, said that if Mr. Davis had not come
home to lunch and done any decent shooting, he should
have killed anywhere from fifty to seventy-five canvas.
There was no limit. Think of it! Bob Smith at Lane’s
had picked up ten that had come to him from Davis’
flocks. I decided after that experience that choice of
location did not always mean birds.

I well recollect my first experience at Ragged Islands
at battery shooting. An outfit was always kept ready
aboard the ‘‘big boat,’’ a large open sloop or sharpie.
It was seldom used, however, except by a few of the
elub members on very calm days.

One such day I determined to try it and had ‘‘Qs’’
and Howard tie me out in the ‘‘flyway’’ between Cedar
Island and South Point. There was not much moving
except numerous bunches of ‘‘boobies’’ or ruddy ducks,
‘‘oreasers’’ I believe they call them on the Chesapeake
Bay. None of them seemed to come my way, though I
kept well down, according to instructions from the
oeuides. I constantly heard the whistle of wings but
when I looked up the birds were always out of range.
Finally Moore shoved up to me and said, ‘‘What’s the
matter? Why don’t you shoot?’’

104 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

‘“At what?’’ said I, ‘‘I haven’t had a chance.’’

‘‘Yes, you have,’’ was his answer. ‘‘Those ‘boobies’
have been cutting over the stool back of your head all
the time you have been in there. Would you like me to
try it for a little while?’’

I assented and ‘‘Os’’ changed with me while I went
and swallowed some lunch aboard the ‘‘big boat.’’ ile
shot a number of times and on my way back Howard
picked up thirteen ‘‘boobies’’ that had fallen to Oscar’s
gun.

The fiight seemed to have ceased when I got in again
but after a long wait a solitary canvasback drake circled
around the outfit and lit in the stool back of my right
shoulder. I was not posted on the batteryman’s trick
of throwing his feet out of the box and spinning around
on a pivot for shots of this kind so I took a chance from
my left shoulder which resulted in a cut lip and the also
the escape of the ‘‘canvas.’’ We took up soon after-
ward and I went ashore without killing a bird on my
first day in a battery.

T had an amusing experience with a battery on another
trip. Or rather my friend ‘‘Mike’’ did. We were tied
off Lane’s in shallow water and the shooting was fair,
‘‘Mike’’ downing eight ‘‘boobies’’ and one canvas in bis
first trick, though it was his first time in a ‘‘sink-box.’’
Howard poled me up to relieve him but before we got

alongside ‘‘Mike,’’ thinking that there was a wing at

the foot of the battery as on the other three sides,
started towards us and walked right off into the bay.

ee ns ——————

BATTERY SHOOTING AT PAMLICO SOUND 105

The water was only up to his waist though slightly chilly
and he was soon warmed up again as the result of some
vigorous sprinting up and down the marsh nearby and
internal applications from my flask. I didn’t think I _
would ever be able to stop laughing at the startled look
of amazement on his face when he first came up after
his sudden dip.

One day at Ragged Islands I was tied out in the bat-
tery and as it was a flat calm there was very little mov-
ing. I lay back basking in the warm sunshine, and was
getting a little drowsy when I happened to glance down
at the stool over the tops of my rubber boots. There
was a large redhead drake, with his wings set, just
alighting in the water. I sat up and, as he rose, downed
him with my second barrel. A bunch of bluebill showed
up on my left side, but the wind had shifted a little since
we tied out and the stool had trailed off to the right of
the battery, so that the birds swung up at my back
and came down over me at a mile-a-minute clip. Two
barrels accomplished nothing and I had to lie back with-
out waving to the tender.

A pair of redheads now flew by outside the decoys to
leeward. ‘‘Too far,’’ I said to myself, ‘‘but I’ll try ’em
once for luck.’’ I held the gun carefully on the last
bird, gave him a good lead, and at the report he crumpled
up dead, at least fifty yards from the battery. When
Payne pushed up to relieve me, he said, ‘‘That was a
nice shot, sir,’’ and I felt quite proud, but there is an
old saying, the truth of which I was to know later.

ROAST GOOSE AND FIXIN’S AT
PEA ISLAND

F‘TER considerable duck shooting at Pamlico, I

and the ‘‘Dude’’ decided to devote one entire day

to hunting the wary goose. On the day we had
set, ‘‘Cap’n’’ Jesse’’ got the ‘‘goosin’ ’’ outfit together
and started with the ‘‘Dude’’ and me for the south end
of the island.

It seemed that Cousin and he on their journey the
day before had put up several hundred geese near some
small pools of fresh water back among the sand hills,
where we headed. Furthermore, the ground was covered
with droppings and goose tracks and Jesse was sure it
was a regular drinking hole for the fowl. There was a
portable stand nearby which we soon shifted into posi-
tion in a hole dug in the sand, scattered seaweed over
the freshly spaded ground, and started to peg out our
twenty-odd goose decoys. We had just tied down the
last decoy and were stacking our guns and shell boxes
in the stand, when Jesse exclaimed, ‘‘Get down, boys,
quick, here comes an old goose!’’ We lay down in the
sand and watched the big bird flopping up against the
strong wind. I did not see how he could help noticing
us, but that gander’s eyes must have been fixed on our
decoys, which were calling to him so vigorously. As

another enticement, the ‘‘Dude,’’ who had slipped into
106

ROAST GOOSE AND “FIXIN’S” 107

the stand, was peeking out through the sedge with his
genial grin. Anyhow, the old goose set his wings to
alight among the decoys, whatever the reason, whether
he mistook that smile for a welcoming look from one of
his next of kin, or whether he was hypnotized by the
‘‘Dude’s’’ eagle eye. The ‘‘Dude’’ was the only man
who had any shells handy and as I whispered, ‘‘Let
him have it,’’ he fired first one barrel and then the other
I expected to witness Mr. Goose’s sudden demise and
the ‘‘Dude’s’’ consequent elation, but I was to be dis-
appointed. The goose hustled away in record time,
while the ‘‘Dude’’ excused himself by saying that he
had used number 5 shot (his duck loads) instead of
BB’s.

Finally the ‘‘Dude’’ and I were packed into the little
box as tightly as cigars in a case. Jesse and John
Etheridge were out of sight with the team and we were
looking for more geese. The ‘‘Dude’’ guarded the lee-
ward side of the fort with his twelve-gauge Parker and
I held down the other side with a Remington auto-
matic twelve-gauge and an old English eight-gange.
The Remington was brand new, had been restocked and
refitted to come up as nearly as possible like my old Scott
twelve, and I had resolved for once to leave the old gun
at home and try the new one instead. I had brought
the eight bore along in case the automatic failed to work,
but my eight-gauge shells were a year old and bulk nitro
of that age is not much good on the seacoast.

There were eight geese in the first flock that arrived.
They came from the ‘‘Dude’s’’ side, as in fact did all

108 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

the birds that day, and dropping down among the de-
coys, waddled about, while the ‘‘Dude’’ and I shivered
with excitement. We decided to stand up and shoot
when the birds jumped. We forgot, however, that both
of us were pretty large and the stand pretty small, and
when we got up were so entangled with each other that
out of four shots we got just one goose. Disgusted
with our clumsy work, we sat back to wait for another
chanee. Soon it came. Hight fine, fat geese joined the
decoys and we jumped up to shoot. As the birds rose,
we dropped three with our first shots, and one each,
mine wing-broken, with our seconds. The automatic
jammed with the first shell and I sprang out of the stand
and tore up the beach after the cripple, working the
ejector with my right hand. I don’t know how many
times I shot at the poor creature before I finally killed
him, but when I returned to the stand with the dead
bird, the ‘‘Dude’’ was rolling over and over, convulsed
with merriment. ‘‘Why didn’t you club him with your
gun instead of wasting all those shells? You would have
got him quicker,’’ he cried. After that the automatic
reposed in one corner of the stand and I shot the eight-
gauge.

Three more bunches visited our decoys and we took
toll from them all. I counted fourteen as our total seore
when the flight ceased towards afternoon. Two of the
geese had trailed off towards the sand hills apparently
badly hit and I started to look them up. I soon found
one stone dead and discovered the other not far from

- ROAST GOOSE AND “FIXIN’S” 109

the first but with his head up. He did not wait for me
to get within range, and the one shot I fired when he
flew off was simply a sporting chance. I saw him alight
again far out on the flats and started after him. On
the way I encountered Jesse, who said he thought the
bird was dead. I told him I did not think so and handed
him the Remington to try when the bird got up. Sure
enough when Jesse approached and up went the Rem-
ington, ‘‘Crack! crack!’’ and still the goose flew on.
Then a third ‘‘Crack!’’ and the old Canada came down
in a heap. I made my way back to the stand with the
two geese, and enjoyed a pipe in the sunshine.

Presently the ‘‘Dude’’ whispered, ‘‘There’s Jesse
rallying the big raft of geese out on the flats.’ We lay
low and the great flock headed our way while we watched
them and listened to the increasing clamor as they an-
swered our decoys. We saw that they would not decoy,
so stood up and gave them four ‘‘guns’’ as they went
by. I accomplished nothing but the ‘‘Dude’’ landed an
old gander that acted as if he had a stroke of paralysis
and came tumbling down from among his companions
to fall dead with a ‘‘thump’’ among our decoys. As we
trudged home that night beside the old pony with our
seventeen geese lying in state in the ‘‘sand buggy’’ we
decided that the day’s shoot was well worth the trip.

Saturday night’s dinner was the real climax of the
trip—oysters, soup, canned asparagus, yams, canned
plum pudding and to top it all, the ‘‘piece de resist-
ance’’ ‘‘in memoriam’’ of Thursday’s most glorious
shoot, ‘‘Roast Goose and Fixin’s.’’

DEER HUNTING IN SOUTH CAROLINA

OON after I bought my plantation and moved to
Charleston, South Carolina, some of my friends
suggested that I buy a share of the Liberty Hall

Club. ‘‘No duck shooting, but good deer and wild
turkey hunting, and some birds,’’ was the way it was
put up to me.

As to location, this is the way it was described to me
how to reach this sportsman’s paradise: ‘‘You drive
out the Meetin’ Street road straight on till you come
to the Blue House road to Sumerville; that’s a little
over fifteen miles from the Charleston County court
house at Broad and Meeting streets. There you take
the right-hand road over the Goose Creek causeway, on
past the Parson’s place, the ‘Oaks,’ and ’round the
corner, take the first right-hand turn into the woods. A
rough drive of about three miles over a muddy, cor-
duroyed cow path, is a fair description of what you will
have to accomplish to reach the modern bungalow club
house of the Liberty Hall Club.’’ Audubon himself
hunted at this historic place.

Being primarily a dyed-in-the-wool duck shooter, and
coming from Missouri, I had to be shown, so at 6 o’elcck

‘one cool October morning I routed out a friendly member
110

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DEER HUNTING IN SOUTH CAROLINA 1i1

when knew the road, and hazed the old Cadillac, with
many a jolt and lurch, over the way to the club.

The crowd there gave us a hearty welcome, and we
were ushered in to one of Minnie’s real South Care-
lina breakfasts of ‘‘grits,’’ and lots of it, bacon, eggs
and coffee, and last but not least, beaten biscuits.

Having satisfied the inner man, the hunters mounted
their prancing(?) steeds, some horses, but mostly mules
brought in for a dollar a day by the neighboring negroes
and followed Sammie Seal, the whipper-in and club-
keeper, a fine-looking negro of pronounced Indian fea-
tures, together with five couple of hounds, to ‘‘Nigger
House and Cut Down,’’ the first drive for the day.

Sammie left us to ‘‘put in’”’ the dogs, while ‘‘Pat’’
Lowndes and Frank Ford, two of the old timers, sta-
tioned the standers, and gave us our instructions:
‘Several short blasts on Sammie’s horn means the start
of the drive, and three long blasts means, ‘Come here,
all’s over.’ ”’

I was placed a short distance from the main trail,
and after tying my old mule to a sapling in a bunch of
small pines behind my stand, I ‘‘got set’’ and waited for
something to happen.

Soon I heard Sam’s horn, and not long afterwards
the pack opened up in a wonderful burst of music. The
sounds came directly towards me and shortly, through
the open pine woods in front of me, I saw the flash of
a white tail rocketing over the scrub growth, and a deer
burst into view, apparently bound straight for me. Oh,
no! JI wasn’t excited!

112 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

Then I saw it was a ‘‘peg-horn’’ buck, and as there
is a club law at Liberty Hall against shooting does, my
excitement grew.

To my disgust the deer kept bearing to my right, and
finally stopped for a minute to get his bearings. I was
tempted to shoot, though he was a long ways off, but I
was afraid he was going to get through the line. I
hadn’t made up my mind when a shot sounded from my
right, and the deer slid down out of sight behind a
myrtle bush.

Mayrant, the next stander, had scored.

Loud blew the horns, and after the buck had been
hung up in a tree, which we would recover on our way
back, the cavaleade once more got under way.

In ‘‘Rodford,’’ the next drive, the dogs ‘‘jumped’’
again, but nothing but does were seen, one flashing a
me not over fifteen yards away.

‘‘Leseman’s Lead’’ was our next destination, where
we were stationed in a half moon, while Lowndes, Ford
and Huguenin, old-timers all, went into the drive with
Sammie.

Hardly were we on our stands when the hounds were
put in, and immediately their wild music burst forth.
‘*Look out! Look out! Buck! Buck!’’ cried Sammie,
and ‘‘Bang! bang! bang!’’ sounded the guns.

‘‘Ah!’’ There he comes, bounding through the pine-
land with tremendous leaps, his head, with a regular
basket of horns atop, thrown well back.

As he swept by the stander to my left, the friend with

DEER HUNTING IN SOUTH CAROLINA 113

whom I had driven up that morning, he stepped out
from behind a tree and with deliberate aim gave him
two barrels. The buck staggered, but I thought he was
going to give me a shot as he kept on. Suddenly, just
as I was going to pull trigger, he let go all fours and
erashed to the ground.

A four-point buck! He surely was a king of the pine-
land, and well worth the ‘‘bloodying’’ that welcomed
my successful friend for killing his first deer.

Do you wonder, after this experience, that I bought
a share in the Liberty Hall Club?

I Lose a Shirt Tail.

The Friday following Thanksgiving, accompanied by
Horne, my plantation manager, his brother Johnnie, and
his brother-in-law Moore, I drove in to Liberty Hall with
the hopes of giving ene of these North Carolina visitors
a shot at a buck. It was afternoon when we arrived,
but as we had consumed our lunch on the drive up, we
did not lose any time and were soon ready for action.

I placed my three visitors, Johnnie, Moore and Horne,
in the order named along the bank in the ‘‘Pasture’’
drive, directly behind the club house, took the ‘‘ Bach-
man,’ stand myself, and tied my horse at the ‘‘Pine
Tree’’ stand, so if the deer came that way, he would be
turned in my direction.

With the clear notes of Sammie’s horn the drive
was on, and soon ‘‘old Buck’’ opened up a little, to be

114 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

followed by occasional squeals from some of the pups
as they tried to work out a cold trail. This was enough
to keep me right on edge, so I was certainly on the job
and ready, waiting, when a tremendous uproar showed
that the pack had ‘‘jumped.’’ The deer had been
‘‘lying-up’’ in front of Horne’s stand, and I expected
him to get the shot. The wild music of the hounds
showed that it was a ‘‘sight ery.’’ Directly I saw the
deer, a fine ‘‘two-snag’’ buck, literally flying towards
‘‘Pine Tree’’ stand with ‘‘Hard Times,’’ ‘‘Buck’’ and
‘‘Logan’’ close at his heels. Seeing my horse, the buck
swung to the left and flashed by the ‘‘Bachman’’ stand
like a bullet.

‘‘Bang! bang’’ I turned two loads of No. 1 buckshot
in his direction. The buck gave a tremendous leap,
cleared the myrtle and gall berry bushes back of my
stand, and disappeared ‘‘over the wire’’ into a neigh-
boring preserve, ‘‘Stoney’s.’’ I ran to stop the dogs,
but in vain. ‘‘Hard Times’’ simply swerved to one
side and carried the rest of the pack, in full ery, off with
him.

I had lost the dogs, there was no more hunting for
the day, and I was due to lose a shirt tail, the club’s
penalty for missing a buck.

The Three-Snag Buck.

Again I was at the ‘‘Bachman’’ stand. This time a
year later, and on the last deer hunt of the season, the
day before New Year’s.

DEER HUNTING IN SOUTH CAROLINA 115

Fire had raged through the pinelands and swamps the
previous week and had thoroughly swept all the drives
with the exception of ‘‘Big Mill Swamp’’ and the ‘‘Pas-
ture.’’

We had driven ‘‘Big Mill Swamp’’ that morning, had
jumped two peg-horns and ‘‘Old Sure Shot’’ (W. F.)
had downed one of them. Since then we had tucked one
of Minnie’s real dinners under our belts, and were fit
to be in at the finish of one of the grandfather bucks
that Sammie had told us about.

I heard Sammie’s horn as he put the dogs in, and
immediately, directly in front of me, appeared four
deer. They were loping gracefully along towards the
‘““Bachman’’ stand and apparently had not heard the
dogs. The leader, a big doe, sailed by about thirty
yards away, followed closely by a three-snag buck. I
confess that I was shaking a little, but I took my time,
saw the old fellow’s shoulder well over the end of my
oun, swung it with him, and, as I pulled, his hind legs
let go, his front legs doubled under him, and with his
head thrown back, he fell never to rise again.

Behind the big fellow stood a two-snag buck, greatly
bewildered, trying to figure out what had: happened to
his fellow. The fourth deer, a small doe, doubled back
into the drive.

I threw my gun on buck No. 2, and then pulled it
down. With ‘‘Old Sure Shot’s’’ buck, we had all the
meat the party of seven could use and I didn’t want to
be a hog. I am sorry now I didn’t shoot, as the deer

116 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

was within twenty yards of me, and I could hardly have
missed him. As it was, the buck dashed off towards the
‘‘Pine Tree’’ stand to be shot at by several standers,
and was found dead by Sammie a week later from the
resulting wounds.

The Christening of ‘‘Old Sure Shot.’’

About a year after I joined the Liberty Hall Club, ©

we were unfortunate enough to lose Frank Ford, one of
our most enthusiastic members, and one of the best

known deer and turkey hunters in coastal South Caro-—

lina.

Naturally when his brother Willie appeared on the
scene in time for the deer hunting the following fall, we
were anxious to see how he would ‘‘stack up.’’ He
showed us.

We had started the hunt, as we often did, with the
‘‘Nigger House’’ and ‘‘Cut Down’’ drive. The dogs
jumped and carried the deer off towards ‘‘Dug Ground’’
and the right flank of the standers. Then one shot, the
call of the horns summoned us, and we rode over to the
old log tramway to find Willie Ford sitting nonchalantly
on his horse, with a peg-horn buck lying in the pine
thicket in front of him. ‘‘Only need one shot,’’ says
he, and was straightway christened ‘‘Old Sure Shot.’’

In ‘‘Rodford,’’ the next drive, the dogs jumped again,
but the buck, a peg-horn which Sammie saw, doubled
back and escaped into a swampy, overgrown bottom.

DEER HUNTING IN SOUTH CAROLINA 117

There were no tracks leading out, so we ringed the cover
and put the dogs in. Directly they jumped, and shortly
we heard a shot.

When the crowd came up, there was Willie Ford, sit-
ting with his back against a pine tree calmly smoking
a cigarette. ‘‘What did you shoot at, Willie?’ cried
‘‘Pat’’ Lowndes. ‘‘There’s a buck lying over there,”’
said Ford, pointing to some bushes about eighty yards
from where he sat. Sure enough there lay the peg-horn.
A long shot—and again—only one barrel. It seemed
if Ford’s nickname had been well chosen.

Now there is an old saying, ‘‘The truth will out,’’ and
later in the day, after a noticeable amount of whispering
and laughing between Willie Ford and ‘‘Pat’’ Lowndes,
they owned up that ‘‘Pat’’ had killed the first deer, and
then placed Ford, who was on the next stand, so that
the rest of the crowd would think he had shot it. Also
it transpired that the second deer was not over thirty
yards away when killed, and Ford had walked back to
where we found him to make it look like a long shot.

The strange part of it is that despite these incon-
eruities, the name still sticks, and Willie Ford is known
by all of us as ‘*Old Sure Shot.”’

AMONG THE CAROLINA “HENS”
AND “GOBBLERS”

ESIDES deer, wild turkeys were plentiful my first
year at Liberty Hall. Several were shot as they
were flying over in the deer drives, and I had

loosed a couple of loads of buckshot at an old gobbler
as he topped the pines coming out of ‘‘Turkey’’ drive,
but without effect.

I had been keeping my two horses at the club until my
stables were completed at the plantation, and when
Horne and I drove up before daylight one morning in
late January, our early start was with the purpose of
getting a shot at a gobbler before breakfast.

Sammie placed us along the ridge at the edge of
‘Big Mill’’ swamp, the writer in a stand behind the
huge root of a fallen pine, and Horne in a thicket over
a quarter of a mile from me. The turkeys had been
taking the bait in front of my stand, and we could hear
the clucking of the old hens behind us in the swamp.

With the coming of daylight the turkey talk ceased,
and I kept peeking out over the old root looking for
arrivals. Nothing appeared except a red bird or two,
a mocking bird, a brown thrush, and a Carolina wren.
It looked as though the turkeys had decided on another

course that day.
118

; satis a
- Se alee 4

AMONG THE CAROLINA “HENS” AND “GOBLERS” 119

All at once I heard two shots over in Horne’s direct-
tion, and when I looked over that way the air was black
with turkeys flying in all directions. Presently one flew
by me well up in the tree-tops and my chance shot pro-
duced no result. Then a small hen came by lower down
and at the report of my second barrel she doubled up
in mid-fliight and came crashing down through the
branches. An eight-pound hen turkey.

Horne soon showed up, carrying another hen, the
mate of mine. He said that after waiting a while he
saw what he first thought was a drove of hogs heading
his way. Then he realized that it was a flock of over
twenty-five wild turkeys. He kept perfectly still, and
they passed by about sixty yards from where he sat.
He picked out the nearest bird and shot both barrels as
he wanted to be sure of it at the long range. When
the turkeys flew, one of them alighted in a pine within
gunshot. He had reloaded his gun but was so excited
that he forgot to throw off the safety, and kept pointing
the gun at the turkey, and pulling the trigger, wondering
why it didn’t go off, until’ the bird got tired of waiting
and flew off.

A Gobbler Gits.
Another. morning Sammie and I had heard an old

gobbler who was gobbling in the swamp, and Sammie
had induced me to perch myself on a fallen tree about

120 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

ten feet up in the air. The branches made a fair screen
in front of me, but I was in plain sight from behind.
It seemed as if the turkey would cross the ridge where
my stand was located, and sure enough, he answered
my first imitation of the call of a hen turkey. I called
again after a short interval, and then once more, but no
response. The old fellow had probably found his harem.

All at once I heard a peculiar call just behind me to
the right, and very gradually turned my head so that I
could look over my shoulder. There stood a young
gobbler. He had just stepped out of the thicket into
the open, and was giving the vicinity a careful and
very thorough inspection. Finally he decided the coast
was clear and walked on, occasionally scratching and
picking up berries and mast. He got directly behind
me so that I lost sight of him, but I could hear him
rustling the leaves and scratching. I was in a predica-
ment. By the time i was able to get turned around and
in a position to shoot, the turkey would certainly be gal-
loping out of range like a race-horse. I determined to
wait and see if the confounded bird would work around
in front of me. Minutes seemed like hours, but I must
have sat there motionless for at least ten minutes listen-
ing to the picking and scratching. I lost patience at
last and swung around on my elevated perch, nearly
capsizing as I tried to bring my gun to bear on the now
fleeting gobbler. He was practically out of range and
going like the wind. I fired once for luck, and as he

AMONG CAROLINA “HENS” AND “GOBBLERS” 121

flew off, one solitary feather came floating to the ground.
The gobbler was gone.

A Nineteen-Pound Patriarch.

Turkeys had been taking the bait at the gum thicket
regularly and Sammie said there was a very large gob-
bler in the drove. So one balmy morning in March I
put my boy, Ray, in the stand, leaving Sammie with
him with instructions not to shoot any hens but wait for
the old gobbler.

IT sat down with my back to a pine tree and began to
eall. Soon a gobbler answered and then another. I
kept calling and they answering. Finally one grew
silent. Then I heard a tremendous ‘‘gobble! gobble!
gobble!’’ from some myrtles one hundred yards away
on my left. My heart seemed to thump so loud that I
was sure it would scare the turkey away. Bang! bang!
sounded Ray’s gun. I was sure that my own chances
were over and that my gobbler would be scared off by
the loud reports, so I stood up and started off in their
direction. Directly I spied my turkey, out of range,
running off like the wind. (Some of the old turkey
hunters told me later that I should have waited and the
gobbler would have come out to me despite the other
shots. Encouraging, eh?)

The first thing I saw at the gum thicket was a huge
gobbler out in front of the stand. He was kicking and
struggling to rise, but a closer inspection showed that

122 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

a stout cord round his red legs hobbled him securely.
Presently his struggles ceased, his alert old head fell
forward and the gobbler was dead. Nineteen pounds
full, the scales showed, and you don’t often get them
larger, the record weight at Liberty Hall being twenty
pounds and fourteen ounces.

Ray had had some experience. Hardly was he settled
in the stand before a turkey hen stalked out of the
bushes, and after the usual careful inspection, started
in on her breakfast. Ray watched her for over half an
hour before she got fed up and departed. Then three
more hens appeared and Ray watched them picking and
scratching for some time. At last he and Sammie had
about lost patience. Ray wanted to shoot a hen, and
Sammie was ready to tell him to go ahead, when they
heard ‘‘Pumph! pumph!’’ in the thicket, and there came
strutting out an old gobbler followed by three more hens.
A regular Sultan with his seraglio.

At Ray’s first shot the old fellow crumpled up in a
heap, but immediately was on his feet again and streak-
ing for cover. Ray’s second barrel scored the turkey,
promiscuously with big shot, and down he went again.
This time, when he started to get up, Sammie, with a
tremendous leap, cleared the top of the stand, grabbed
him, and tied him up where I found him on my arrival.

A mighty proud moment for Ray when he rode in to
breakfast with the old ‘‘Patriarch’’ with his flowing
beard, tied to his saddle bow!

DUCK SHOOTING IN SOUTH CAROLINA.
| RICE FIELDS

UCK shooting has ever had an attraction for me.

In February a few seasons ago I had the great

good fortune to be a ‘‘pay guest’’ for two days.
at Cherokee, the hospitable plantation home of the
gifted author of ‘‘A Woman Rice Planter.’’ This beau-
tiful old place with its avenue of live oaks, its old-
fashioned garden with the japonicas, azaleas, crepe
myrtles and Lady Campbell violets and its old Colonial
house looking out over the tawny Pedee River, is situ-
ated on the banks of the Pedee some fourteen miles out.
of Georgetown, S. C.

A flivver, piloted by some local Barney Oldfield,
showed me a swift flight over the rutted apology for a
road, and also flushed two wild turkeys a mile or so
out of town. It grew dark before we reached our des-
tination, but as we turned in the avenue the full moon
was just rising, and its pale lights sifting down through
the moss-hung live oaks on the old white house with its
pillared porch gave me an impression of the ‘‘old time
South’’ that I shall never forget.

‘*Chloe,’’ Mrs. Pennington’s old cook, certainly knew

how to make waffles, and there were plenty of them
123

124 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

ready for me when I arrived. Later, Joe, the house
boy, showed me up to my room, where I mounted some
steps to leap into the huge feather bed. The quacking
of the mallards in the rice fields across the river lulled
me to sleep.

Shortly before daybreak Joe roused me, and started
a ‘‘light wood’’ blaze on the hearth in the warmth of
which I hustled on my shooting clothes. In the dining
room Joe had breakfast ready of boiled eggs, hominy,
sausage, toast and coffee, all cooked over the open fire,
and then Joe Keit took me in hand.

The canoe was paddled up river, crossed over and
sped on through a maze of rice field ditches and canals
into the ‘‘Thoroughfare.’’ Occasionally we surprised a
mallard into splashing up out of the reeds with a
startled quack, but it was still too dark to shoot. At
last an old greenhead with swiftly beating wings rose
against the faint pink of the horizon that announced
the coming dawn. His black silhouette was too good a
chance to miss, and he splashed into the canal at my
first barrel. At the report of my gun legions of ducks
roared up from the old rice fields, and the air was full
of the ‘‘whee-whee-wheeing’’ of the countless wings. I
am sure that all the ducks on the Carolina coast were
holding a convention in ‘‘Marshfield.’? Every now and
then pairs and singles and small flocks would dart out
over the bank of the ‘‘Thoroughfare’’ ahead of the
canoe and a number of them stayed behind to join the
bag. Then, too, we ‘‘jumped’’ a few ducks around the

DUCK SHOOTING IN SOUTH CAROLINA 125

bends of the twisting stream. As the sun rose higher
the ducks stopped moving, and we paddled back to the
landing on the Pedee.

In the evening Joe paddled me out into the wild rice
in ‘‘Marshfield’’ to a little muddy pond-hole where we
set out a half a dozen blocks. Then we shoved back
into the rice at the pond’s edge. There was little air
stirring and the ducks did not begin moving in till near
dark. I had the decoys so placed that when the birds
hovered over them before alighting they would be
plainly outlined against the moonlight. With such
chances it was nearly impossible to miss, and I had
hardly downed one before one or two more would be
flickering in the pale light. I suppose if I had cared to
keep on I could lave killed a hundred ducks, but twenty-
five seemed plenty, and at that, I added five or six more
to my string while Joe was picking up the ducks and
decoys.

On the Santee River.

The following winter the ‘‘Missus’’ and my two boys
joined me on my trip to Georgetown. Unhappily Mrs.
Pennington was ill and could not have us at Cherokee,
but we were lucky enough to discover another haunt of
the ‘‘pay guests’’ at Annandale Plantation, six miles
down Winyah Bay. There we spent a long-to-be-remem-
bered ten days hunting deer, turkeys and ducks, and
of this latter I shall make special mention.

126 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

The plantation consisted of some 4,400 acres, 2,300 of
which were old rice fields along both banks of the North
Santee. Two hundred acres had been planted the past
‘season, but the greater part of this ‘‘duck habitat’’ was
grown up in wild rice. There were plenty of ducks, but
the equipment of boats and decoys were rather slim,
and the feeding grounds being so vast, that unless
blustery weather occurred to keep the birds moving,
one fired a few shots where first located, and the duck
battalions hied themselves to pastures new where there
were no gunners.

One evening of a cold, stormy day, the spitting rain
and sleet fast turning into snow, the boys and I crossed
the river to a smail reedy island where the luxuriant
growth of wild rice made it a famous ‘‘hang-out’’ for
English ducks (mallards). JI took my stand on an old
rice field bank near the landing, while the boys went on
_ with the negro who had paddled us across, as he was the
only one of us who had on hip boots, and even then
many of the rice field ditches were too deep for him to
cross to retrieve the birds.

It was certainly cold and uncomfortable on that
muddy rice field bank, and the wet snow made it hard
to see, but a continuous flight of mallards streamed
past, and the weather was such that they would
hardly seem to notice the reports of my gun in the roar
of the gale. The first duck I killed dropped on the
farther side of the deep ditch in front of me. The
next one crashed into the reeds across the canal behind

DUCK SHOOTING IN SOUTH CAROLINA 127

me, as did the third and fourth. I knew that they were
all ‘‘lost birds,’’ so afterwards chose only those shots
where I was reasonably sure of downing the ducks on
the bank beside me. At that I had seventeen, sixteen
mallards and one pintail, when the boys came back on
their way to the boat.

Ducking at ‘‘Rice Hope.’’

In January a friend of mine had invited me to a
duck shoot at ‘‘Rice Hope,’’ one of the old rice planta-
tions some thirty miles up the Cooper River from my
home at Charleston. The ninety-horse-power motor
eruiser ‘‘Nokomis’’ transported us up the river and
back, and formed our ‘‘home camp’’ while at the planta-
tion of my friend.

We arrived in time for the eveniug shoot and the
hunters divided, most of them to take stands on the rice
field banks or dykes, or in the reeds out in the fields to
shoot over decoys. J! was allotted a Mullins ‘‘tin boat’’
to paddle through the rice field ditches ‘‘jumping’’ ducks
and keeping the birds moving for the standers. It was
easy shooting as the fat rice-fed mallards would stay
hidden in the thick patches of reeds and wild rice till
I nearly paddled on top of them, when with loud quacks
of alarm, preparing me for their appearance, they would
flop up out of the cover which they were so reluctant
to leave. With my paddle tied to a thwart, and my gun
(with the ‘‘safe’’ off) across my knees, it was a simple
matter to get lined up on the old fellows before they

128 SCATTER-GUN SKETCHES

were fully straightened out in full flight. I had an even
dozen, all mallards, when I got back, and the standers
all had their share.

In the morning all of us shot out of stands in the rice
over decoys. The day was warm with practically no
wind, so after the first flurry at daylight, the shooting
was rather slow. Still when we ‘‘shoved off’’ at noon
the total for the evening and morning shoots with four
eunners was 114 ducks. I had a stand in part of the
old plantation known as ‘‘Fish Pond.’’ There was a
little open water directly in front of me and also on my
right, but on all other sides I was surrounded by wild
rice and reeds towering over my head. The ducks that
came my way, mostly blackheads, with a few mallards,
would flash into sight without warning, and while a few
hovered over the decoys, most of them gave me a snap
shot as they started to disappear again over the reeds.
I picked up fifteen, but was unable to find a number of
birds that dropped dead in the jungle of rice and reeds.

Duck shooting on the South Carolina coast is unique,
apart from its quantities of ducks and their distinctive
abode in the old rice fields, in its environment—the old
plantations, rich in historic interest. One can easily
imagine himself following the ‘‘Swamp Fox’’ (Francis
Marion) along the twisting ‘‘Thoroughfare,’’ or through
the maze of rice field ditches in the Santee swamp, his
shotgun a flintlock musket, his game no swift-flying
mallard or lightning-darting teal, but the skulking
Tory, or the red-jacketed Tarleton trooper.

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