The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1903-12-11
WHAT FOOLS THESE MoRTALs
A Mighty Hunter Growing Old and
Cynical,

iS@s
Kimball Graphic: When Puck exclaimed
to the king of the fairies, Lord, what
fools these mortals be-" he wasn't refer
ring to ducks-not the aquatic kind, any
how. We've been thinking of those fell
lows down at Lake Andes the past two
w~eeks-among them our next door neigh
Dor. Tom Berry, and his brother Lee of
Chamberlain, and Photographer Barton
Of the same city. They have been there
with a party from Alexandria and a
passel of local hunters all through the
freezing weather of last week and since,
housed in a shanty by the lake nd-en
joying themselves.
Lord, what fools these mortals be-
If somebody would offer those huners
So Il day and board to camp out in a
shanty on a school section and shoot at
a mark in the grey of the morning they'd
ask him il his grandmother wasn't a
monkey. But if you're Just hunting
ducks, or deer, or anything that will shed
blood il hit in the right spot-well, that's
quite another thing.
Lord, what fools these mortals be-
and there was never a bigger one in the
bunch than the writer of these lines-and
he hasn't fully recovered-not yet.
Many a day in his younger years was
spent on the marshes of the great lakes
in bleak November cutting down the wary
canVasback and his first cousin, the red
iitdt. ouI at 4 Ill INC lB-
hours before dayl:ght-with a French
Canadian guide to pilot the way with a
boat full of decoys; p~unting the boats
through ice formed in the ponds and cut
Offs the night before, with the wind COM
ing Off the lax cold enough to freeze yer
giZzard; spray freezing the instant 1t hit
a boat; drifting ice everywhere-and over
all the swish and whir of wings that
causes your blood to tingle like electricity
and brings a shivering whimper from the
little spaniel curled up in the bow. Over
board go the decoys-sevently-five or a
hundred of them-and in twenty minutes
from the bill Of every one hangs an icycle
two inches long. Splash. down goes a
Observation-Disclosures splash and the little
retriever is pushing his way through
broken ice for the kicking bird on the
edge of the rushes. With every fresh trip
the wash of the sea over his back adds
to the sheet Of ice on it until 1t Is half
an inch thick. II on shore he'd roll it off
cant do that in a boat and sometimes you
have to pull his hair loose where it Is
frozen to the boat-but he's as big q fool
as his master-and so the fun () goes on
until both man and dog are so cold that
both lave to go to the nearest shore and
run around in the reed and grass to keep
from freezing stiff, quite.
But oh, the blessed experience of 1.-THE
getting back to red-hot supper of broiled
duck, baked potatoes, johnnycake and cot
fee--long after dark-the fragrant after
supper cigar or the sweet briar pipe-the
rccounting of the days ex~citements-and
DER all the warmth of the roaring fire
perhaps a big fireplace and blazing back
log, near which sleeps the faithful re.
~triever, his slumbers only disturbed by
little Whispering barlis as he lives in his
dreams the chase of that last winged red,
head. y feeling Of sweet content and
d~rowsiness steals over you; softly the
arm drops over the side Of the big chair
The briar slips from the nerveless fingers
and over you steals sleep-that blessed
sleep which only comes after a day with
the dog and the gun.