The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1904-01-30
MADE A RECORD
WITH The GEESE
MART WHTTCOMB AND JACK
HARRITYY DO TALL SHOOTING.
Bag 1O6 Honkers In Three Days
WIitcOmb Lands Six Birds Out of
One Flock With the Six Barrels OF
His Repeater-The Fatal Telegram.

Jack Harrity, the former Great
Northern engineer, told this story at a
session Of the hot stove circuit the
other day. 1t goes to show that all
things come to him who will but wait
and sleep.
ct was twelve or fifteen year ago."
said Harrity, THAT Mart Whitcomb
and I started on goose hunt at
Marsh Lake, S. D., near Watertown.
You drive out with a team, and If you
make a firm stand and refuse to be
buncoed. the livery man won't charge
you more than three prices for the rig.
Before we left Mart's pet setter,
Brownie, had been stolen, and Mart
had left word with his family to tele-
graph him the instant they had any
news of the pup. We got%out to Marsh
Lake in good season, and were fortu-
nate enough to bag nine or ten geese
the first day. Mart and made some
thing of a record while we were there,
by the way. Mart killed six canvas
backs in succession with his repeater,
landing a. bird every shot before the
flock got out of range. and I nailed
nine with the two barrels of my ham
merless.
1.-The sport got rather slow the first
two or three days, and we decided we
would have to build a blind. We
picked out a sand spit, off which the
geese used to feed every morning, and
we built a blind that was a dandy.
We figured that any goose that could
spot the thing as artificial must have
second sight. Then; we established
ourselves there just before sunrise one
morning and waited for the geese.
pretty soon along came a big flock
Of honkers, and settled down in the
water and started feeding, but they
s. ~ -, ~ II
watched, but the fool things insisted
on keeping out of range, and pres
emily both of us began to get sleepy.
It was one of those warm days in the
late fall, and we had got up pretty
early. Finally Mart said T might
sleep for an hour or so, and he would
keep watch and call me if the geese
came within range. So I stretched
out on the warm sand and dropped off
ct must have slept for three or four
hours. When woke up the sun was
shining in my face, and it felt rather
late. I rolled over and looked at Mart
and there he was fast asleep. He GER
tainly took the barrel of flour as a
peeped thru the blind, and I hope I
may never live to tell another yarn if
those geese weren't so close I could
have reached out and knocked one
over with the stock of my gun. There
must have, been a. hundred in the
flock, and they were right up by the
edge of the spit, packed so close to-
gether you could have walked out
into the lake on their backs and never
got your feet wet. 2
"I reached over and touched Mart
lightly and he started up. 'Sh,' said I.
Don't make a noise, but get your gun
and look thru the blind
."He nearly tainted when he saw
these geese. You take the bunch on
the left I said, and iii get those
on the right Fire when I say ready
Eve both fired at the same time,
and got both barrels Off before they
rose. Mart kept on pumping his re-
peater until they were out of range,
and when we picked them up we
counted twenty-nine we had landed,
nearly all Of them with our first four
shots.
:, 1--WE came back the next day and
worked the same trick, only we didn't
go to sleep for fear we wouldn't wake
up in time. We only got eleven that
day, and the next we got a crack at
two hocks and when we counted up
the dead there were sixty-six geese
piled up on that sandspit. That comes
pretty near being record, LOG geese
in three days for two men.
after that third day we concluded
we didn't want to hog all the geese in
the state, and we struck camp and
started for Watertown. Just as we
were about to leave, out came a
wagon from the livery in WATERFOWL,
driving like a stage coach down a
Rocky mountain grade. The kid
driving the wagon hailed Mart and
handed him a telegram. Mart had
left word at the telegraph office to
forward any messages that came, be-
cause if any Of his family were sick
or had an accident he wanted to know
at once. He paid the kid eight dol
lars for delivering the message, tore
the envelope open with trembling I'm
gers, and read the message. It was
signed by his wife, and read
Brownie found this morning.
"'Well,' said Mart, with a sort OF
sickly smile, it was pretty near worth
the money to know the pup is safe
FOOTBALL