hours in
the woods and fields, shooting such game as I needed, learning to love
life in the open, the trees, the flowers, the birds and the wild animals
I met. I was as proud of my outfit as the modern hunter is of his $500
gun and expensive accompaniments. When I went after the cows, I carried
my gun, and often got a dozen or more quail at a pot shot out of some
friendly covey. If I went to plow corn, or work in the vegetable garden,
the gun accompanied me, and it was sure to do deadly execution every
day.

When it was too wet to plow, no matter how hard it was raining, it was
just right to hunt. Clad in a gum coat, I would take my gun and brave
the elements, when a seat by the fireside would have been much more
comfortable. I loved to be out in a storm, to watch the rain, to hear
the wind toss and tear the branches of the trees, to hear at first hand
the fury of the storm, and watch the birds hovering in the underbrush,
and the wild waterfowl seek the protection of the willows. In such a
storm great flocks of geese would scurry across the country within a few
feet of the ground. They usually went in the teeth of the gale. At such
times they constantly uttered shrill cries and appeared utterly
demoralized.

If there were game laws in those days, I never knew it. It was always
open season with me. Often my mother would tell me to shoot something
besides quail, that she was tired of them.

There was a slough on the place which was full of beaver and beaver
dams. How I tried to get one of them, always without success! They were
very crafty, very alert, and at the slightest indication of danger dived
under water to the doors of their houses, long before one was in gunshot
of them. Full many a weary hour have I spent, hidden in the brush,
watching a nearby beaver dam in the hope of getting a shot, but always
without avail. They would appear at other dams, too far away, but never
show themselves close enough to be injured.

In the winter the slough fairly swarmed with ducks of every variety.
They were disturbed but little, and they used these waters as a resting
place, flying far out into the grain fields and into the open plain at
night for their food. The beautiful wood duck, now almost extinct in
California, was very plentiful. They went in flocks as widgeon do. They
would go into the tops of the oak trees and feed upon the acorns. I
killed many of them as they came out of these trees. In flying they had
a way of ma