I reached cautiously into one of the sacks and brought forth one of the decoy ducks.  Around his neck I buckled a little leather collar to a ring in which had been attached a cord and weight.  Then I cautiously waded out and anchored him.

He was delighted, and proceeded immediately to take a bath, ducking his head under and out again, ruffling his wings, and wagging his absurd little tail.  Apparently the whole experience was a matter of course to him; but he was willing to show pleasure that this phase of it was over.  I anchored out his five companions, and then proceeded to arrange the wooden decoys artistically around the outskirts.  By now it was quite genuinely early daylight.  Three times the overhead whistle of wings had warned me to hurry; and twice small flocks of ducks had actually swung down within range only to discover me at the last moment and tower away again.  When younger, I used, at such junctures, to rush for my gun.  That is a puppy stage, for by the time you get your gun those ducks are gone; and by the time you have regained your abandoned task more ducks are in.  Therefore one early learns that when he goes out from his blind to pick up ducks, or catch cripples, or arrange decoys, he would better do so, paying no attention whatever to the game that will immediately appear.  So now the whistle of wings merely caused me to work the faster.  At length I was able to wade ashore and sink into my blind.

Immediately, as usual, the flights ceased for the time being.  I had nothing to do but sit tight and wait.

This was no unpleasant task.  The mountains to the west had become lucent, and glowed pink in the dawn; those to the east looked like silhouettes of very thin slate-coloured cardboard stuck up on edge, across which a pearl wash had been laid.  The flatter world of the plains all about me lay half revealed in an unearthly gray light.  The wind swooped and tore away at the brush, sending its fan-shaped cat’s-paws across the surface of the pond.  My ducks, having finished their ablutions, now gave a leisurely attention to smoothing out their plumes ruffled by the night in the gunnysack.  They ran each feather separately through their bills, preening and smoothing.  All the time they conversed together in low tones of voice.  Whenever one made a rather clever remark, or smoothed to glossiness a particularly rumpled feather, he wagged his short tail vigorously from side to side in satisfaction.

Suddenly the one farthest out in the pond stilled to attention and craned forward his neck.

“Mark!” quoth he, loudly, and then again:  “Mark! quok—­quok—­quok!”