ssed a good retriever like Old Ben.

The Slough proper was about two miles long, and had probably eight or
ten "holes" in which ducks might be expected. The region of the Slough
was, however, a different matter.

It was a fascinating stretch of country, partly marshy, partly dry, but
all of it overgrown with tall and rustling tules. These reeds were
sometimes so dense that one could not force his way through them; at
others so low and thin that they barely made good quail cover. Almost
everywhere a team could be driven; and yet there were soft places and
water channels and pond holes in which a horse would bog down
hopelessly. From a point on the main north-and-south ditch a man afoot
left the bank to plunge directly into a jungle of reeds ten feet tall.
Through them narrow passages led him winding and twisting and doubting
in a labyrinth. He waded in knee-deep water, but confidently, for he
knew the bottom to be solid beneath his feet. On either side, fairly
touching his elbows, the reeds stood tall and dense, so that it seemed
to him that he walked down a narrow and winding hallway. And every once
in a while the hallway debouched into a secret shallow pond lying in the
middle of the tule jungle in which might or might not be ducks. If there
were ducks, it behooved him to shoot very, very quickly, for those that
fell in the tules were probably not to be recovered. Then more narrow
passages led to other ponds.

Always the footing was good, so that a man could strike forward
confidently. But again there are other places in the Slough region where
one has to walk for half a mile to pass a miserable little trickle only
just too wide to step across. The watercress grows thick against either
oozy bank, leaving a clear of only a foot. Yet it is bottomless.

The Captain knew this region thoroughly, and drove in it by landmarks of
his own. After many visits I myself got to know the leading "points of
interest" and how to get to them by a set route; but their relations one
to another have always remained a little vague.

For instance, there was an earthen reservoir comprising two circular
connecting ponds, elevated slightly above the surrounding flats, so that
a man ascended an incline to stand on its banks. One half of this
reservoir is bordered thickly by tules; but the other half is without
growth. We left the Invigorator at some hundreds of yards distance; and,
single file, followed the Captain. We stopped when he did, c