but sand, slush, and soft drinks. He won't sail, he can't swim,
he won't fish: but he's hankerin' to shoot somethin', havin' been
brought up in a place where if you don't shoot some of the neighbors
every day or so folks think you're stuck up and dissociable. Then
somebody tells him it's the duckin' season down to Setuckit P'int, and
he says he'll spend his day off, while the boss is away, massycreein'
the coots there. This same somebody whispers that I know so much about
ducks that I quack when I talk, and he comes cruisin' over in the
buzz-cart to hire me for guide. And--would you b'lieve it?--it turns out
that he's cal'latin' to make his duckin' v'yage in that very cart. I was
for makin' the trip in a boat, like a sensible man, but he wouldn't hear
of it.

"'Land of love!' says I. 'Go to Setuckit in a automobile?'

"'Why not?' he says. 'The biscuit-shooter up at the hotel tells me
there's a smart chance of folks goes there a-horse-back. And where a
hoss can travel I reckon the old gal here'--slappin' the thwart of the
auto alongside of him--'can go too!'

"'But there's the Cut-through,' says I.

"'Tain't nothin' but a creek when the freshet's over, they tell me,'
says he. 'And me and the boss have forded four foot of river in this
very machine.'

"By the 'freshet' bein' over I judged he meant the tide bein' out. And
the Cut-through ain't but a little trickle then, though it's a
quarter-mile wide and deep enough to float a schooner at high-water.
It's the strip of channel that makes Setuckit Beach an island, you know.
The gov'ment has had engineers down dredgin' of it out, and pretty soon
fish-boats'll be able to save the twenty-mile sail around the P'int and
into Orham Harbor at all hours.

"Well, to make a long story short, I agreed to let him cart me to
Setuckit P'int in that everlastin' gas-carryall. We was to start at four
o'clock in the afternoon, 'cause the tide at the Cut-through would be
dead low at half-past four. We'd stay overnight at my shanty at the
P'int, get up airly, shoot all day, and come back the next afternoon.

"At four prompt he was on hand, ready for me. I loaded in the guns and
grub and one thing or 'nother, and then 'twas time for me to get aboard
myself.

"'You'll set in the tonneau,' says he, indicatin' the upholstered
after-cockpit of the concern. I opened up the shiny hatch, under orders
from him, and climbed in amongst the upholstery. 'Twas soft as a
feather-bed.

"'Jerushy!'