The midland journal., 1906-04-27
ON THE.BAR|

These little snipes-the ones with
the fox-red tails and shoe-button eyes
are right smart wizards on the
wing" said Mr.. Gould, hooking his
thumbs in his suspenders and lean
ing against the veranda post. They're
a little too clever TO- my sightin'
eye, but you look like you'd get some,
suh''
AS Sawyer, nodding his apprecia-
tion of the implied compliment,
ing clothes and rubber boots, Mr.
Gould winked humorously at Scott,
his foreman.
'If one of them snipes should
come a corkscrew twist on that fel-
low, ned get most entirely out o.
plumb. I've seen tobacco-store In
juns more limberer'n him."
"HA's all wood and not drop of
oil, and that's fact" agreed Scott.
~New York dries man out, l rec
kon."
Moth Caroliny's the only place
that breeds an raises 'em true said
Gould, senteniously. We'll, rustic
out the boys, and We'll kinder look
up them calves. Seems like we new
or would get this job DONE
Gould was a cattle king in small
way, although no one would have
suspected it from the little tidy house
and quarter-acre patch that comprised
his home on the mainland. Here on
the broad bar was his real. farm,
long, rickety-legged shack, with
mile ON mile of brackish swale land
cut by tide water creeks and ram
parted high against the heavy bat
tories of the Atlantic by great, bald,
shining, shifting dunes. There was
not fence on the range. Wide water
kept the cattle from leaving the barn.
Summer and winter alike they roam
ed about with no other shelter than
their own tough skins.
One or twice year Gould brought
over his force for a roundup. Calves
were branded, marketable cattle shot,.
or roped and led on to the broad fiat
boats, and a general account OF stock
taken. Gould was on the point of
starting off on one of these eXpedi-
tions when J Renforth Sawyer, with
whose leather house Gould had some
dealings, arrived on the scene.
Come over and rough it fo'
spell,"' said the hospitable cattleman.
There's good snipe shootin' and air
without any smoke in it. Come over
and get fat"
Mr.. Sawyer was already rotund,
but the novelty of the trip appealed
to him. He decided to come over"
and show these lean and jocose men
that New Workers could exist away
from asphalt pavements and sky
scrappers.
He had an intuitive perception of
the conversation between Scott and
Gould as he left the shack, and it
angered him. He did not expect to
kill any "snipe." Better men with
a gun than he confess that the "long-
bill" is difficult mark; but he re-
sented the general air of good-natured
ridicule with which he felt the men
regarded him.
81 guess man that's played tag with
grip-cars and elevated trains and
ferry-boats and automobiles all his
life can take walk on their little
sand-bar without losing many but
TONS" he said to himself. somewhat
passionately.
The walk certainly promised to be
a monotonous bit of exercise. Not
a snipe rose from the green, soggy
stretches bordered by low bushes,
which seemed to be struggling their
the ocean breezes. The tall, whisper
ing sedge, which rippled over the
greater part of the bar, seemed equal
ly tenantless.
Sawyer had been told that it was
the home of an uncountable number
of sora-rail, but he did not know that
rail will flush" only at high or near
ly high water. He simply concluded
that his informer had basely taken ad-
vantage of his ignorance. He was so
wrought up by, this time that he VOW
ed he would bring some kind of game
back to camp, If he had to go to the
southern end of the bar to get it.
Just then, from a patch of ooze
fifteen yards ahead, a snipe sprang
up with a startling scaipe! scatpe!
bored like a bullet into the wind. then
turned and came racking directly
over Sawyer's head
He threw up his gun. fired and sat
down hard in the slime; but although
somewhat disconnected, he keEt his
eyes glued to the zigzagging bird.
He had never flushed snipe before,