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HUNTING SNEAKER OF GARY How Nick Took Toll in the Indiana Bid Lands and Prospered Gary in Indiana where the great steel works are located is a busy city of many thousand inhabit ¬ ants yet I well reniember when the ground on which it stands was of little value much of it dear at fifty cents an acre and the only inhabitants wild animals geese ducks snipe and sand fleas writes Edward T Martin in HunterTraderTrap ¬ per There was but a single house where the busi ¬ ness center of Gary now is and that was a cheap re ¬ sort for hunters with the usual saloon attachment attachmentThe The Pineries back from where the great mills are was part ridge part slough and with its thousands of acres of brush puddles and little lakes a favorite shooting ground of mine mineI I kiiew right well an old market gunner Nick the Sneaker who dragging after him a heavy muzzle loading gun would sneak up ou i flock of ducks sleeping in some quiet pond whistle to make them raise their heads then rake them fore and aft one such double shot of ten beginning and ending his days gunning for it gave him as many ducks as he could pack away awayLuck Luck in the long run favored this man as the world looks at such things Hft own idea may be different He sold ducks to the man of the hunting house a man who owned more of the pinery land than he did money and wheii it came time to settle up for the ducks he had bought he couldnt pay or possibly didnt care to let loose of good money so lie said to Nick Youd ought to have a piece of ground handy to where you shoot and build yourself a shack Ive got an eighty near those ponds where you kill so many ducks Ill sell it to you cheap cheapNick Nick shook his head as he replied Aint got no money moneyTWO TWO ACRES OF LAND FOR DOZEN DUCKS DUCKSTho Tho land owner told him Dont need to have any money Ill give you Ill give two acres of land for every dozen good diuks you bring me counting those I have already got I can sell ten or fifteen dozen every Sunday to city guys who come out to my place for a hunt an spend the day boozing an playing cards Come on what do you say sayNick Nick hesitated It was a big contract Still ducks were plentiful and cheap also with what was due him he had u good start ID those days ducks were divided into two classes large and small Mallards and redheads selling as large at about a dollar a dozen after all charges were paid and every other variety as small at about seventyfive centu net No one knew much about canvasbacks Rarely one ever came to those pinery ponds and when any ever did and was killed it was usually thrown in with the small ducks So after think ¬ ing the matter over carefully Nick closed the deal got a contract for the land and that winter built himself a log cabin with a roof of bark and before the ice went out with his wife and ever increasing family moved in inThat That spring the water was high His land was afloat Muskrati sat on his steps to escape the flood Still ducks were plentiful the one draw ¬ back being that in order to deliver them on his contract it was necessary to wade often knee deep and the water was cold Boats were for city hunters He did not own one arid would not have used it if he did Besides he was getting way the better of the prices for that same spring a flight of canvasbacks tempted by high water and abundant food came through the country and of those I killed which I could neither use nor give away I sold at fifty cents a dozen some twenty dozen and mallards were worth no more moreNick Nick didnt like the superabundance of water If it had been beer but never mind that only it would have been another story He consoled himself with the remark Maybe Forsythe dig ditches and drain the land sometime sometimeThis This same Forsythe was a large owner of marsh land in that section also he clahmil much to which he had no clear title by reason of accretions and laws governing riparian rights How vast his hold ¬ ings were can be seen from the fact that he rented to a single shooting club 5000 acres of marsh and shallow water for a term of years at fifty dollars a year yearNICK NICK HOLDS ON TO HIS EIGHTY EIGHTYForsythe Forsythe did run several lines of ditches through the Pineries that same summer He also sent a man to try and buy Nicks Hghty offering him a dollar an acre cash 1 think Nick would have sold only Mrs Nick vetoed the proposition with a loud and emphatic No and what she said around that place went wentShe She had planted a garden celery cabbages i ota toes and onions The land was fine for celery As an alibi for her refusal to sell she told Nick If you waits maybe you get three maybe four dollars an acre which was a big price for land in such PineryThe a wild country as the Pinery The spring Nick moved in I ran onto a big timber wolf out in the open toying with a mink he had recently killed killedOn On a duck hunt taken less than two miles from Nicks shack I averaged over a hundred ducks a day dayThe The following fall I tracked in the fresh snow a band of six timber wolves following them for miles and abandoning the pursuit only when darkness came A party consisting of four hunters the clubhouse keeper two spaniels and a hound took up the wolf hunt next morning where I had dropped it I was not one of the crowd Six inches of snow had fal ¬ len over night not a wolf track did any of them see and the nearest approach to sport was when a new hand at the hunting game reached into a hollow log to pull out a rabbit his dog told him had taken refuge there only to discover it was no rabbit but a particularly active and wellloaded skunk and he blamed me for it Said it was my fault that he went after a pack of wolves which he believed existed imaginationSo only in my vivid imagination So with siich near neighbors it is little wonder that Nick was uncomfortable and willing to sell and All that summer and fall Nick and his wife argued over the proposition Forsythes man Had made about buying but joy cometh in the morning to those who are willing to wait When the snows of winter melted again the water was high not too high just high enough so Nick was able to practice his art of sneaking i rices for game were better and when he had an offer of three dollars an acre for the land his cup of happi ¬ ness was full fullMeanwhile Meanwhile the country was settling up rapidly Houses were being built and the prices for every ¬ thing from land to ducks and garden truck were booming Nick doubling up on his cash returns by peddling from house to house Moreover some of the foreign laborers in the mills conldn t tell the difference between a mallard and a mud hen which Nick was not slow in finding out and he collected for many a water chicken at large duck price So taken all in all the Sneaker and his family were making more money than they dreamed existed a few years before beforeTHE THE SNEAKER RESISTS TEMPTATION TEMPTATIONAlso Also not a few real estate men looked with covet ¬ ous eyes on that land of Nicks One smart fellow offered 2000 cash for it and Judging rightly that the market shooter had no real idea what two thousand round silvered dollars looked like when all in one heap brought the money with inm in a canvas bag and dumped it in the middle of the kitchen table saying There is what I will give you for your eighty eightyHe He overplayed his hand Nick gasped That all for may landV Taiut good money 1 know lialf of them is lead Maybe all of them is bad Ivo heard of men who go around playing such games on honest farmers but you cant come it on me meThen Then Mrs Nick came bounding in from the garilin She without seeing the pile of dollars shouted Sell our land with all them cabbages and that celery growing so fine Well I guess not Then glancing sit the money she stopped hesitating what to say Every dollar looked as large as a cart wheel and the table was ready to break down under their weight She wiped her eyes on tin corner of her apron to make sure she was seeing straight looked out of the window at her garden then turning her back on the money with a Jet theebehindmeSatan air said That stuff aint no good to buy our laud wth We wont sell anil you can l et no sale was made madeThe The ducks loved those pinery ponds and sloughs Their ancestors had made them their habitat for hundreds of years and like Old Dog Tray Grief could not keep them away As lonjr as they could find water to drink they came and kept acoming Houses made little difference the mills none and buyers came to Nicks cabin after garden tnick and game instead of his having to pack his wares from house to house Any duck that wore feathers bar teal which were too small sold for half a dollar a pair and the teal they brought half price which was good as fifteen or twentr even in these bad duck times when the birds were becoming scarcer every day were often killed at a single shot by Nick and his big gun Once gunOnce in a while I shot near the Pineries PineriesAbout About sunrise ducks that had l een feeding there all night in the shallow ponds began working out to deep water and by knowing just where to go and exactly how to set decoys good bags were often possible but the shooting never lasted more than a couple of hours still in that time a bag of twenty was no uncommon thing and once I ran up close to fifty fiftyNICK NICK GROWS RICH AS LANDOWNER LANDOWNERThe The last time I heard from that section it was not so many years sigo every wet season and every day spring or fall when there was a northeast gale booming on Lake Michigan some ducks visited this former habitat of the duck family Nick tliouuh did not follow them so persistently Age was telling on the man but then he didnt have to hunt for u living any more He had blossomed out as a full fledged house owner A boulevard had been opened up near his land and on a side street branching off from it the former market shooter had built a dozen cottages for which the mill hands furnished ready tenants He had also built for himself a mansion out of boughten lumber and was regarded as the rich man of the neigh ¬ borhood borhoodHis His wife with the help of some of her gnind childreu still cultivates her garden and despite the fact that she also is no spring chicken but is old and fat continues to be boss of the eighty and everything on it which includes her husband husbandNick Nick uses the old muzzleloader occasionally It is hard to forget ones first love in guns as in other things A shooting club has a preserve not many miles from Nickville This the old man visits as an invited guest guestThe The smoke of his black powder is like a fog bank The ducks he kills are mostly mud hens They drift down on his blind built In a bed of wild rice by hundreds and find him ready and waiting There comes a double roar from his gun and many a blue mallard when the smoke clears is seen kicking with its toes to the sky but Nick has been compelled to adopt at least one newfangled idea He has to use a skiff to gather up his game which he does with many a growl that times aint what they used to be and really I believe the old insin was more happy when as Nick tho Sneaker he was living in a barkroofed shanty and selling his ducks for a dollar a dozen than he is now as Mr Nick the house owner who has property that he can sell any day for 25000 and a rent roll amounting to 125 a month little of which he spends for his tastes are simple and the truck farm garden no longer gives him all the money h needs because Mrs Nick even if old and fat is i bear for work and gets itvery dollar out of the land that is possible Yet a life of ease does not increase the old mans happiness He has found out despite what the world may think that a contented miiid is better than great riches and with the ducks about gone with game laws limiting the number he is permitted to kill and newfangled ideas every ¬ where he is far from being contented He belongs to an era that Is past so who can blame him if he lougs for the good old days with game salore anil m limiting laws on anything pertaining to shooting
