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MOONLIGHT AND BLACK DUCK Brawny Bill McLaughlins Foray in the Swamp and Its Fruits Lone brawny Bill McLaughlin pushed his way through the alders at the edge of the trout stream writes F V Williams in Rod and Gun in Canada A bakers dozen of speckled beauties dangled from an alder stringer which lie carried in one hand while with tin other he parted the tangle of alders and also carried a natural growth fishing pole At the side of the wood road the man stopped and with a few sharp strokes of his pjocket knife severed the end of the pole around which the linen line was wound The piece of line wrapped wood fell to the ground and as the fisherman stooped to pick it up a slight rustle in the underbrush attracted his at ¬ tention Woodsman that he was he froze in stantly and was rewarded fiveminutes later by the appearance of a black duck and a brood of youngsters which waddled carefully out into the open They started up the trail directly toward the man fifty feet perhaps they advanced the old duck leading arid eleven youngsters stretched out in single file behind Perhaps it was a back draught through the trees as the light breeze was drawing from the birds to the man At any rate the old duck stopped The whole procession stopped and then what a scattering The old duck which had two seconds before been sturdily leading her little brood suddenly to all appearances became affected with a broken wing and sundry other ail ¬ ments She sprawled and flopped almost directly in front of the fisherman who now that he was discovered made a move as if to pursue the ap ¬ parently wounded bird One wing trailing on the ground her body almost dragging she strove to lead the intruder away from those precious duck ¬ lings farther down the trail A few minutes chase to see how near he could come to the anxious mother and he suddenly retraced his steps Gath ¬ ering un his discarded string of trout and his line lie carefully crawled under the low branches of a large cedar Five ten minutes passed and then with a rush of wings the old duck suddenly ap ¬ peared Alighting in the wood road she stood neck stretched to its full length watching care ¬ fully in all directions A few moments of this and then with a few low calls the whole brood suddenly came to life From bush and fern and fallen logs they appeared and with nervous little qnackjngs stole off again through the brush in the direction from which they had come comeEleven Eleven perfectly good black ducks if the foxes dont get em grinned the watcher to himself An theyre headin for the mill pond Guess Ill know where to find a couple of good young birds when tle fall shootin comes comesAnd And now the fall shooting season has come The young birds were as strong of wing now as their elders and through some kindness of the gods the whole eleven youngsters had arrived at maturity Four drakes and seven ducks there were a flock of thirteen when the old birds were with them Quite a few of the young gunners from the village had marked the long line of ducks dip into the woods somewhere up near the old mill pond but the locating of them after they had arrived was a well nigh impossible undertaking as the under ¬ brush luadfi movement without detection almost an impossibility Oh the other hand laying for tlien was almost as difficult owing to the fact that the gunner never knew where they would drop in The pond was only one of a succession of long pools Iving at the edge of a quite sizeable swamp As a result the ducks had all the advantage of lo ¬ cation cationGuns Guns were banging at sunrise and sunset but there seemed to be no shooter on the job that was smart enough to outwit the shrewd old leader of this particular flock flockINTO INTO THE SWAMP FOR BLACK DUCKS DUCKSThe The moonlight nights came Moonlight and black ducks What does that mean to you Mr Gunner Ever been there Oh yes the law forbids thi shooting of wild fowl after sunset nowadays a good law and a wise one but in the old days of the muzzle loader when game was plentiful it was quite some experience to lay for black ducks o moonlight nights Some of the shots one would get were against the sky as the fowl were scarcely distinguishable against trees or rocky cliffs along shore at night but against the moonlit sky it was another story and if you were a good wing shot you could generally succeed in getting enough for the table at any rate rateBilly Billy McLauglilin sat in the corner grocery quietly listening to the young Nimrods accounts of the shrewd old leader of the black ducks After two or tlir evenings of this line had an idea Tjiere was one place almost an the center of the swamp that lnyl never been mentioned and the nights were alriiost perfect in their moonlight love ¬ liness linessSeven Seven p m of the following day saw the quiet of 5 the swamp disturbed By two gunners noisily crashing through the underbrush a few hundred yards in from the edge of the swamp They were hopelessly lateand also too noisy Away1 Away1over over in the center of the tangle of brush and water and mud was a bit of an isle A fallen tree made a natural footbridge to this and had you looked closely through the thicket at the end of this piece of fallen timber you would have made out th outlines of what appeared to be a man but so still did he sit that not even the inquisitive red squirrel that ran along the tree trunk suspected he was within one hundred miles of the man animal crouched a few feet beyond beyondA A half hour passed The sun dropped behind the trees a muskrat swam across the little creek to the left climbed out on the bank arid after a few seconds spent in arranging his table proceeded to break the hinge on the large fresh water clam he had dragged out and after cleaning out the shell he slipped back into the water The watcher across the creek could not distinguish one object from another now Below the line of the tree tops everything merged into an indistinct blur of blacks and grays graysSuddenly Suddenly came the whistle of wings The figure in the brush became rigid Raising his eyes but not his head he caught the gleam of white under ¬ neath the dusky wings as the flock circled in He had guessed right the pool in front of him wus the place placeTiie Tiie long barrels of the old muzzle loading fowling piece showed for the fraction of a minute above the lower bushes The leader of the flock saw and understood and with a warning call he swerved upward in his flight but it was too late The gunner guessing rightly that the big black bird silhouetted against the sky was the drake lined the leader and two others as quickly and as well as he could as the flock bunched slightly and let drive There was a flash and roar as the black powder exploded One duck struck the water dead another a young drake came down and swam in a half circle and he too lay still the third the big leader hit the water in a fluttering heap He had lost control of one of his wings but that was all His head was clear and the broken tip of his wing in the excitement of the moment was scarcely felt by him He had not much more than reached the water when lie went under Did any ¬ one ever tell you a black duck was not a diving fowl It was a good long deep dive too no mere spattering of the water and when he rose to the surface his bill alone was above water and he swam straight away toward a mass of reeds and mud on the farther side of the creek The gunner foiled in his attempt to use his second barrel when the flock passed in against tlie shadows of the dark timber watched eagerly to see the effect of his first shot He saw the three ducks fall and noted the one dive and as the little spaniel retrieved tlie first fowl he saw the long ripple left by the drakes bill as he swam for cover Steadily he followed sighting his gun where lie knew the bocv to be expecting to see the fowl rise to the surface at any minute but in tiiis he was disappointed and finally firqd in the vain hope of a stray shot striking the head which he knew to be but half an inch under water Tlie distance was too great the smooth bore pattern scattered so much at that distance that in places there were spots a foot square where the shot did not pattern When patternWhen the half spent charge of shot scattered about his head tlie wounded fowl promptly dived again but he was so close in to tlie reeds now that his feet soon touched bottom and slowly cautiously he drew his half drowned body out into the shelter of tlio shadows and darkness darknessFor For perhaps two hours he lav perfectly quiet His wing pained him a bit now but that was noth ¬ ing compared to his dread of the mink he knew prowled about this particular water course and then there was the giant pike that be had seen cap ¬ ture tlie wounded duck the summer before He re ¬ membered how he had watched the struggles of the unfortunate bird and finally in panicky flight how the flock had loft the place for a safer feeding ground on the lake but now he could not fly flyIt It might have been just a darker shadow among the other shadows that drifted out a few feet from the reeds so slowly did it move and then slowly very slowly the drake began propelling himself forward and when he had gone a few hundred feet lie thrtw caution aside and swam boldly out into the moonlight It was a long two miles from the pond in the swamp by way of the little stream to Hie outlet into the big lake but before the moon liart dropped out of sight in the west the drake imlled himself out among the rocks almost at the liiki slor IIiTi in this place he dressed his ivniiiilriT wine as best he could and slept fitfully uilil liiylircik The first crimson Beams of light in the east saw him moving carefully down towards the waters edge His disabled wing made him more alert than usual his senses more keen and a pebble rattled noisily on tlie beacti the other side of a large rock Stopping dead 4ii his tracks lie stretched his long neck above the rock and looked down What he saw nearly threw him into a panic of fright Perhaps two yards away with a large trout lying between tlrem were two mink the one that had just emerged from tlie water was nosing the air suspiciously She had evidently winded the duck but fortunately his head was turned away That was enough with a rush the wounded biid made for the water on his side of the boulder and although the mink leaped swiftly to a vantage point from where he could see to the other side of the rock pile it was too late The duck was ten feet out from shore and headed straight out toward inidlake He swam all day resting at intervals and at nightfall drifted into a little cove on the lecside of an island perhaps two hundred yards long by fifty wide A long sand bar ran out on either side of tlie cove Wild rice grew in abund ¬ ance along shore A spring that seldom froze even in the coldest weather bubbled up from the bottom at the head of this cove Ashore there was shelter aplenty as he and the flock had proved many a tinie before when lie was its leader The place had never been visited by a mink and seldom by a man animal He ate and slent and thrived and was visited by the flock when they came for safetys sake to this outoftheway place Occasionally lie would try his wings when they left but would invariably drop out after a few hundred yards alight in tlie lake and swini back to shelter How ¬ ever these trial flights became longer arid longer and finally he took to trying short flights on his own account and then one day in the late fall a bunch of black ducks rested for a few hours on the island preparatory to tlieir trin south lie joined them and when the flock left hu vanished with them Away down on tlie sea coast that winter when the flocks silently dropped In fr fresh water at the brook that ran put over the tide flats they had no sentinel more alert than our friend the drake He had had experience He it was tliit always alighted farthest away from any possiblt cover for a gunner and twice that winter as lie circled about in the air before alighting he dis ¬ covered ambushed gunners and kept the flock out of danger Moonlight and black ducks Does it bring back any memories to you oldtime gunners And pay how many ducks have you ever shot out of a flock in your time that have been nicked be ¬ fore Ever find them in good shape physically speaking and still carrying arouud a bit of lead
