Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1910-03-17
will fetch me alongside a good deal
q%uicker'n my deah man." I'll tell you

will fetch me alongside a good deal
quickern my deah man, I'll tell you
that.
We frogged it up and down all the
forenoon, but didn't git a shot at moth
ing but one stray 'squawk' that had
come over from the Cedar swamp. l
told James twas a ~canvasback, and
he blazed away at it. but missed it by
three fathom, as might have been en-
pected.
Finally my game leg-rheumatiz, you
understand-begun to give out, so 1
flops down in the shade of a sand bank
to rest, and the reverend goes poking
off by himself.
l carlate l must have fell asleep, for
when 1 looked at my watch it vas
close to / o'clock and time for us to
be getting back to port. l got up and
stretched and took an observation, but
further N Clarissa's umbrella on the
sky line 1 didn't see anything stirring.
Brother James want visible.
l started ove toward the Creased
Lightning. I'd gone only a little ways
when Bang, bang" goes both barrels
of a shotgun, and that Todd crittur
busts out hollering like all possessed.
"Hooray" he 'squeals in that
squeaky voice of his. "Hooray, I've
got 'em, I've got emp
l left my WI gun laying where
twas and piled up over the edge Of
that sand bank like a cat over a fence.
And then l see a sight. There was
James hopping up and down in the
beach grass, %squealing like a guinea
hen with a n throat and waving his
gun with one wing-arm, l mean-and
there in front of him in the foam at
the edge of the surf was two ducks as
dead as Nebuchadnezzar, two of Lone
some Huckleberries' best decoy ducks
ducks he'd tanned and trained and
thought more of than anything else i'll
this world-except rum, m~aybe-and
the rest Of the flock was digging up
the beach for home as if they'd been
telegraphed for and squawking "Fire!'
and "Murder!!"
Course I'd known about Lonesome's
owning them decoys-told Todd about
al IOO-DoC L ddd1l L SCCh Gil liz
where along shore, and l sort of CAL
lated they was locked up in Lone
some's henhouse, that being his usual
way when he went to town.
give got 'em!" hollers Todd, grin
ming till l thought he'd swaller his
own ears. 81 shot 'em all myselfv!'
"You everlasting L begun, but 1
1i1r't rnt uny f,1Nthor Thnro 1roo n
rafting noise behind me, and 1 turned
to see Lonesome Huckleberries him
self setting OF the seat of his old truck
wagon and glaring over the hammer
head of that balky mare of his straight
at Brother Todd and the dead decoys.
For a minute there was a kind Of
tableau, like them they have at church
fairs, all four Of us, including the
mare, keeping still, like we was frozen.
But twas only for a minute. Then it
turned into the liveliest moving pic
ture that ever I see. Lonesome
couldn't swear-being a dummy-but if
| ever a "a got profane with his eyes
he did right then. Next thing l knew
he tossed both hands into the air,
clawed two handfuls out Of the atmos-
| phere, reached down into the cart,
grabbed a pitchfork and piled out Of
that wagon and after Todd. There was
murder coming, and 1 could see it.
"Run, you loon" 1 hollers, desperate.
James didn't know what he'd done,
| cal'late, but he jedged twas his
move. He dropped his gun and put
down the shore like a wild man, with