CHAPTER XIV.

_Wild Duck Hunting._

The following, I know, will sound strange to most readers. But the fact is, duck hunting is the one sport above all others for me.

Yes, it is true I have hunted the swift, ruffed grouse, which is sometimes called partridge, and as this beautiful bird darted through the undergrowth I have downed eleven of them without a miss.

In northern Ontario I have time and again got the wind in my face and slipped up and peeped over a hill at a doe and fawn that were quietly feeding there. I have stood with the crisp breeze cutting my eyes, watching Nature in all her beauty, and presently a big fellow steps out from some concealed spot, nibbles a little browse, or perhaps walks up to a sapling and rubs his antlers. There he is, perfectly unconscious of the fact that a deadly enemy is unfolding his arms from around a clean rifle; and in the midst of life he is in death.

The lordly moose is another of our Canadian beauties (I said “beauties” when I believe I should have said “homelies”) and more than once have I had an ordinary carload of these noble animals at the mercy of my rifle. There they have stood, watching their leader die, apparently unconscious of what had taken place.

I have crawled, head-first, down into an old, deserted bear den, and to my astonishment and surprise almost rubbed noses with Mr. Bruin. Needless to say I didn’t require telling to back out. This was in the winter, of course, when the bears were hibernating.

On another occasion, one still, frosty morning, I stood at the top of a hill and answered the howl of a timber wolf, and to my delight he replied. Then with my mouth close to the ground I again imitated that lonesome, blood-curdling sound; and in about one minute he answered back. Then in a few seconds I very carefully let out another call, and while I was examining and cocking my rifle he again answered. Now I was sure he was coming my way. There I stood, waiting, for over five minutes, with the crispy air in my favor, every nerve keyed up with anxiety. Just as I was about to turn my face to call again, I saw this monstrous, shaggy wolf break from the green cover out into a beaver-marsh about one hundred and fifty yards away, and as I pressed the rifle firmly to my shoulder a low whistle from my lips brought him to a stand, and I had the great satisfaction of seeing him give one tremendous leap in the air as that two-hundred-grain bullet blew his heart into fragments. I mention this incident because our timber wolf, the great red-deer destroyer, may be poisoned or trapped, yet, owing to his keen smelling powers, hearing, and sneaking ability, very few sportsmen—yes, very few of even the most experienced trappers—have ever had the satisfaction of stinging him with a bullet.

Yet in spite of all these experiences, which are the height of thousands of sportsmen’s ambitions, I can recall no line of hunting that afforded me more real pleasure than duck-shooting over a flock of home-made decoys. And before I attempt to tell you some things that the wild ducks have taught me I want to give you a glimpse of a real duck-hunt my brother Ted and I had, way back in boyhood, muzzle-loading days, when a dollar bill would blanket a horse.

Somehow or other we had gotten our duck-boat up at a place on the north shore of Lake Erie called Cedar Creek, a distance of about five miles south-west of our home. I had whittled in nearly every night of the winter, making a flock of decoys, and brother Ted did the painting. This particular spring we were splitting rails to finish fencing in one hundred acres of bush; so one Monday morning about the first of April, father gave us a stint, to put up so much fence for the week, and at it we went. At half-past five Friday evening we had our week’s work finished, ready for a duck-hunt on Saturday.

After supper we got everything ready for an early start, and as we shook the powder in the flasks and sized up the amount of shot we had in our leather pouches, the anticipation of the next day worked on us until one said, “Let’s go up there to-night. We can build a fire in the cedars and sleep under the boat.” Enough said; here we go! Dear mother scoffed at the idea, but she seemed powerless. “Well,” she said, “if you are bound to go, I will put you up a basket of food.” “No, no; we are not going to carry a basket of grub all the way up there. Just give us a small lunch to put in our pockets for breakfast.”

Well, just about sunset found each of us with six wooden decoys, some in our hunting-coat pockets, others strung around our necks, and with each a pair of those old-fashioned cowhide boots on. We started by hand over those soft, sticky, newly-built clay roads, a great percentage of it running through the unfenced forest; and by the time we got there I can assure you those twelve decoys were heavier than they were when we started. It was a beautiful night; the moon which was only a few days old, lay on its back in the south-west, those two little, sharp, bright horns almost outlining the picture of a full moon. To think of it, even now, calls to my memory a sweet little song my older sister sang to me when I was but a lad:

“Oh, Mama, how pretty the moon is to-night; ’Twas never so lovely before, With its two little horns, so sharp and so bright— I hope they don’t grow any more! If I were up there with you and my friends We’d rock in it nicely, you see; We’d sit in the middle and hang on to both ends, And what a nice cradle ’twould be!

We’d call to the stars to get out of our way Or else we would rock on their toes, And there we would sit till the dawn of the day And see where the pretty moon goes. Oh, there we would rock, in the beautiful skies, And through the bright clouds we would roam; We’d see the sunset, and see the sun rise, And on the next rainbow come home.”

Soon we made our way into the cedars and found our boat just as we had left it. Then we carried the decoys back to the lake shore again, and as we put them down on the sand, Ted suggested we carry old driftwood and build our “blind” ready for the morning’s sport. Even with this we weren’t satisfied, but we also waded out in the shallow water, threw out our decoys, and had the pleasure of seeing the sinking moon glitter over the rippling waves of beautiful Lake Erie on to the sides of our newly-painted decoys. Then we started back into the cedars.

In those days there were about twenty acres of this red-cedar jungle and in some places one could not see a man over twenty-five feet away. The camping place we selected was about twenty feet in diameter, partly surrounded on three sides with a bank of sand fully six feet high, heavily capped with cedars. Here we gathered dry twigs and built a fire. Then we dragged the boat over and turned it on its side, thus filling the gap and making almost a complete circle around our fire. After gathering armful after armful of wood for our night’s fuel and cutting lots of cedar boughs for our bed, we sat down to rest. The sand was dry, and as the night was still, a very little fire kept us quite comfortable. Then we pulled off our cowhide boots and set them back on the opposite side of our fire. They made great reflectors, mine especially; for although I was only sixteen years old, most of my growth had gone into foundation.

Ted allowed his boots were French kip; I said mine were cowhide. This caused brother to pick at his sprouting moustache as he remarked, “Jack, to look at them from here, one would think they were cows’ fathers’ hides.”

As I got up and dropped another stick or two on our fire, Ted spoke up quite cheerfully, “Jack, let me tell you just what this made me think of. You know the other night when I was down at that country dance, I ran across one of the sweetest French dolls it has ever been my pleasure to meet. She was a real little bird of life, and the more I danced with her the more I wanted to, and really I began to think I held a hand bigger than a foot. Finally as we were standing on the corner, awaiting our turn to swing, she nudged me and as I leaned over she whispered in my ear, ‘Mr. Miner, don’t you think if you were to trade your cowhide boots off for a pair of light shoes it would be easier on this man’s white ash floor?’”

About the next suggestion was to eat our lunch so as not to be bothered with it in the morning. This piece of work was eagerly accomplished, only the programme was altogether too short at the one end, as I could almost feel the pieces of dead hog and hunks of bread strike the log I was sitting on. However we were compelled to be satisfied.

As we sat there watching the sparks disappear into the darkness we could hear the lonely hoot of the owl in the distance; and the swish-sh, swish-sh-sh-sh, of the small waves on the lake a few rods to the south of us; and from the slough to the north came the faint creak-k, creak-k-k-k, of the little spring frogs, as much as to say, “Go to sleep. Go to sleep.” All at once Ted’s voice rang out, “Wake up, Jack!” and really our surroundings were so completely covered in with Nature she had closed my eyes and I did not know it. Shortly the wind started moaning through the cedars, and we imagined we could feel a change in the atmosphere, and brother suggested we crawl in under our boat and have a sleep. So we straightened the soft cedar boughs around as best we could on the dry sand, crawled in, letting the boat down over us. We wrapped ourselves around each other very closely. The next I knew I was lying on my side with brother’s warm arms around me, but my eyes were open and I imagined I could see light under the boat; so I raised it up. Ted spoke first, “Jack, look at the snow!” And really the sight almost caused one to doubt his own eyes, for everything was hanging with snow; the only bare spot was the small pile of smouldering ashes; those cowhide boots were simply snowed full. To make bad matters worse the wind was in the north and it was still snowing.

Well, we knocked it out of our boots the best we could and put them on. While I was fixing and blowing smoke in my eyes out of the fire, trying to get it started, Ted knocked the snow off his gun and went to see if the decoys were all right, and before I got the blaze going I heard “Bang!” I only thought he was trying to dry his gun out, but presently I heard “Bang!” again. Then I knocked the snow off my shooting outfit and made fresh tracks toward him. I found him quite excited. “Jack, hurry! The ducks are coming by the thousands!” There were about fifty or more in the decoys when I came. “Look! Here they come again! Get in the ‘blind’ and keep your red head down!” and he continued pricking dry powder in the tube of his gun with a pin. As about twenty-five ducks hovered to alight we rose up and lit into them. That is, he did, and down came three; but my old gun just went “Snap! Snap!”

Ted sprang to his feet and said, “Prick some dry powder in the tubes of your gun while I go and get the boat,” and just as I was in the middle of this operation brother shouted from the edge of the cedars, “Jack, get ready; here they come again.” So I slipped a cap on each tube, but none too quickly, for the ducks were upon me. “Snap! Bang!” and down came a big red-headed drake. Brother fairly ran with the boat on his shoulders, a paddle in one hand; and then the real fun began, for it wasn’t a case of looking for ducks, but how fast could we load those old soft coal burners and get the fuse started. Although some of the decoys were half covered with snow, yet the ducks would alight right among them while we were standing up loading our guns; really the snowy air seemed full of them, and we had the pleasure of seeing five tumble out of one flock.

Soon our empty powder horns compelled us to stop shooting; but this did not stop the sport by any means, for there we lay low in our “blind” and watched and studied these migrating birds, as flock after flock settled down among our decoys, until I firmly believe there were over two hundred blue-bills, canvas-backs, red-heads, golden-eyes, ruddies and so forth, within gunshot of our hiding place.

But like lots of other good times, it had to come to a close and about eight o’clock the storm ceased, it cleared off and the ducks got wise and scarce.

So we picked up the decoys and hid them in the dry sand, carried our boat to its hiding place, and about 10 a.m. we shouldered our thirty-seven ducks and started for home.

The snow was now nearly all melted on the road, leaving the clay so sticky that we decided to go home through the woods and fields. But our heavy load of ducks and the spongy fields made our travelling real hard work, and our progress was of the very slowest character. The farther we went, the slower our gait, for our steam was gradually running down. And how we thought of the basket of grub dear mother wanted us to take! Finally we crossed the last road and the next house to become visible was ours. How high some of those old rail fences did seem, and how my stomach did gnaw for just one bit of food! Talk about Esau selling his birthright for a plate of porridge! really there was such an aching void in me I would willingly have given my birthright, or birth-wrong, for just one handful of corn-mush and pork grease.

As we neared the house mother came to meet us. Glancing over her glasses, she said, “Are you hungry boys? Let me carry some of your ducks. How many did you get? Aren’t they beauties! Now sit down, boys, and I will have your lunch ready in a few minutes.” Just then the old clock said “Three.” Here we had been nearly five hours coming that many miles.

But just the same, this was a real outing for your life, and as I went to bed I can remember mother and my younger sisters starting to pick ducks. When I descended the old-fashioned stairway again it was Sunday.