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CHAPTER X.

MALLARD SHOOTING IN ICE HOLES.

LATE in the fall or very early in the spring, excellent shooting may be had at times in ice-holes. These holes. are found in swift-running water, or are what is generally known as air holes. When the weather has been cold and prairie ponds are frozen, driving the ducks from open land to timber, naturally at this time they seek water wherever it may be found. They fly through the timber and over the trees in constant search for open water,-places where experience had heretofore taught them that water and feed could be found in plenty. Their flight is slow, their search thorough, and they are not unrewarded, for they find an open spot where water may be had. When they find a place like this they alight in great numbers. The quantity lighting in the hole depending on the number of them coming. This hole, like an omnibus, always has room for one more; and in they come, darting, sailing, fluttering, until the sheet of water resembles a mass of moving life. After the hole is filled they become generous, and wishing to make room for fresh arrivals, that come like a deluge pouring down from the sky in every direction, they crawl out and sit on the ice, quacking vociferously, or with craws distended with corn, fruits of the last over-land trip, they sit on the ice blinking, preening and sleeping the time away. Their loud calls vibrate and course through the

still woods, carrying welcome music to the alert ears of the hunter. He marks the direction, and stealthily proceeds in the direction of the resting birds, whence faint and almost indistinct calls are wafted to him; then some noisy duck, having partaken too freely of corn, and feeling the effects of its fermentation, raises her pretty head and quacks so loudly that he marks the spot where the birds are located. His dog is filled with nervous apprehension lest he commit some act, show some movement that will attract the attention of the hordes of resting ducks. Cautiously the hunter raises his hand, as he turns and beams on his four-footed companion a look so full of warning. The dog interprets his master's thoughts, and returns to him a bright look, so full of confidence and cautiousness. They understand each other; one is human, the other of the brute creation. The master's mind shows his thoughts in his eager eyes ; the dog receives it, and is governed accordingly. No need of words, their understanding is complete and satisfactory, and the dog treads noiselessly in the footsteps of his master, carefully avoiding dried sticks, twigs and rattling leaves. The hunter desires to reconnoitre, and stooping over with trailing gun in hand, he steals toward the vast trunk of an ancient oak. he nears it he drops gently, quietly on his knees, and lithes himself toward the objective tree. Gaining it, he rises carefully, peers intently round its wrinkled body, and drinks in with delight the pleasurable sight before him. As if the dog could read the innermost thoughts of his master's mind, he imitates each move of the hunter, governed by the same thought, the dog advances, hesitates, stops, in exact conjunction with

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his master. As the man stoops, the dog crouches. lower, and neither look to the right or left, but gaze steadily ahead with increased interest, knowing without seeing, what they are approaching. When the hunter gets still lower and crawls along the ground, without looking around he reaches behind him, closes his fingers tightly together, drops his hand near the ground, reaches far back, shows his open palm to his silent companion, and thus conveys to him warning for greater caution. The dog understands this signal, and crouches still closer to the earth. Stealthily he steals and glides along, so low he cannot get lower without crawling, for his belly scrapes twigs and leaves and dead sticks. What an intent look in his quiet, determined face! His tail, his pride, that has so often beat brush, grass, weeds and briar, when in the open field or murky swamp, now hangs behind him still and lifeless, lest its movement might disclose his master and himself; and then, when he reaches his master's side, the anticipation of a hunter is felt by him; he becomes inquisitive; the quacking of the ducks is plainly heard the dog is unable to resist the temptation, raises his head with eyes brightly beaming, looking as if they might almost burst from their sockets; his ears bent forward listening for faintest sound; his teeth imperceptibly chatter as he tries in vain to curb his strong emotion, His master notes his excited state, quietly lays his strong hand on the intelligent brown head, tenderly pushes it down, while the dog casts on him a look of gentle reproach, while the love-light shines from his handsome eyes, as he looks into the eyes of his friend, his companion, his master, whom he would gladly die for.

Those two friends stand silently hid behind the protecting tree, the hunter debating in his mind, whether to step boldly out, plainly in view and rout the birds, or attempt, by crawling, to get a sitting shot. He decides the former, and when he steps out in open sight, is seen, and with a grand roar that fills the woods with its volume, the birds arise in fright, and in pairs and flocks, both great and small, fly away. The dog looks askance at his master, questioning the propriety of routing such an immense flock without firing a shot; but a reassuring pat on the head, a kind word, dispels the doubt from his mind, and he cheerfully and silently acquiesces to the judgment of his master. The ducks are loath to leave a place like this, and soon begin to return-they will not keep out. Coolly the hunter knocks them right and left; the dog is in an ecstasy of delight. Constant exercise has caused the blood to rush through his veins; he comes and goes in and out the water, his brown coat glistening with glittering ice, forming brilliant beads in the sun-light; then he marks the course of a wing-tipped drake, as it tries hard to follow the flock, and falls one or two hundred yards from the shooter. Away he goes along the ridges, through brush-piles, over frozen sloughs and soon returns, the drake in his strong jaws, with its good wing beating against his nose, while its long neck encircled with its white tie, its glossy dark green head teeters and swings up and down in perfect rythm with the movement of the dog's body.

When a man finds a place like this, he has found a mine, which is exhaustless for that day. If he intends staying in the neighborhood, he should hunt some other place similar to this,-hunt them on alternate