"Oh, I don't know--a great many. Killed five hundred last fall."

"What's the greatest number you ever got out of a flock, Marks?" put in
Burt.

"Well, there is the old squaw, or long-tailed duck. They go in big
flocks, you now--have seen four or five hundred together. In the spring,
just after they have come from feeding on mussels in the southern
oyster-beds, they are fishy, but in the fall they are much better, and
the young ducks are scarcely fishy at all. I've taken twenty-three out of
a flock by firing at them in the water and again when they rose; and in
the same way I once knocked over eighteen black or dusky ducks; and they
are always fine, you know."

"Are the fancy kinds, like the mallards and canvas-backs that are in such
demand by the epicures, still plentiful in their season?" Webb asked.

"No. I get a few now and then, but don't calculate on them any longer. It
was my luck with canvas-backs that got me into my duck-shooting ways. I
was cuffed and patted on the back the same day on their account."

In response to their laughing expressions of curiosity he resumed: "I was
but a little chap at the time; still I believed I could shoot ducks, but
my father wouldn't trust me with either a gun or boat, and my only chance
was to circumvent the old man. So one night I hid the gun outside the
house, climbed out of a window as soon as it was light, and paddled round
a point where I would not be seen, and I tell you I had a grand time. I
did not come in till the middle of the afternoon, but I reached a point
when I must have my dinner, no matter what came before it. The old man
was waiting for me, and he cuffed me well. I didn't say a word, but went