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Show M fiCE jk J UPPER BAY, MOBILE, ALA. It was just about daybreak. A sweeping gale, half hurricane, came out of the northeast, accompanied by a cold, driving rain. "A perfect day to kill ducks," the guide said. He had overlooked the fact that It was a much more perfect per-fect day to kill men. The wind roared, the rain whipped In, the email boat rolled and soon was half full of water. "You couldn't find a better day for ducks," the guide said. There were ducks every- where, but there was a lot more rain and wind and bumping bump-ing water In the bay. We finally reached the blind. Ahead was the job of getting get-ting out the decoys and the cane for the camouflage. We get the skiff aftiv'JidLsJ Into the blind posl- GrantlandRice tinn as another half-tidal half-tidal wave hits us and we really get to work. Part of the decoys are swept overboard. Part of the cane for the blinds go with the decoys. Your correspondent would like to go 1 with both and end It all. It still isn't quite daylight and the storm is picking up speed and hitting hit-ting power. It is also getting colder cold-er and colder, wetter and wetter, rougher and rougher, tougher and tougher. Everyone is soaked and freezing. 1 But everyone is happy except your correspondent who has suddenly decided de-cided he has no hostile feeling against any duck. In fact he likes ducks. But it Is too late now. We are out in the middle of a virtual tidal wave to mow them down. Where Real Fun Begins Now we are all set in the blind, with a sand bar close at hand. Here come the ducks teal, redhead, red-head, mallard, widgeon, sprigtail, black duck, canvas back, dough-grey, dough-grey, every known form of the duck breed. A big part of this display was due to "Ducks Unlimited," a fine sporting organization. And there were DUCKS UNLIMITED. UNLIM-ITED. The ducks were doing all right. But I kept thinking why should man be subjected to this punishment. "Here they come," our guide said. "Get low get low." We got low. At this moment an-other an-other swirl of wind and rain overturned over-turned our boat. Mind you, it was bitter cold, and much colder as our clothing became be-came drenched. "We missed that raft, cap, but they'll be back. Workin' over to another bay. But they'll be back Just as soon as we get straightened out again set, you know," said our amiable guide. I turned to a fellow named Stout Steve Owen, coach of the New York Giants, who was In the next boat. I could see that Owen's 280-pounds were in agony. He was taking an even worse beating, for he was a much bigger target "Bring me the Bears and the Redskins," Red-skins," he growled. "Bring me Baugh and Luckman." At this spot a rush of water swept Owen out of sight. And this is true. I'll admit at that time I wasn't Interested In-terested In what happened to Owen. I was only interested In a fellow named Rice. We got on a mod bar or a sand bar again, and It took us 50 minutes to get away, losing a paddle and a few more decoys. Suddenly, someone fired a gun and a teal blew out to sea. He was dead and he was lucky. We got set again with thousands of duck swarming in. We were ready for the big killing, i But once again another half-hurricane struck us with another rush of water, and once again the boat went under and so did we. By this time the wind had reached a velocity of 50 miles an hour and the rain was a young deluge. Under Un-der these conditions yon couldn't hit an elephant at 5 paces. Had the teals and mallards and redheads and widgeons been smart, they could have murdered us. For we were whipped. Soaking wet, battered and beaten, half-drowned, aching and cursing, we only wanted to find "Red" Leath-erbury's Leath-erbury's houseboat, with Pat Moul-ton, Moul-ton, my favorite director, leading the way. The ducks were not smart we were not smart but who is in this cockeyed world? Cobb's Favorites Irvin S. Cobb, the humorist, who is recuperating in New York after a serious illness, was reminiscing about the old-time sports characters the other day. "What a baseball parade has gone by since those days," Cobb reflected. "I mean Christy Mathewsoo and Roger Bresnahan Three-Fingered Brown and Johnny Klmg Walter Johnson, Rube Waddell, Eddie Collins, Col-lins, Joe Jackson, Ty Cobb, Nap La-Jole La-Jole and Shoeless Joe Jackson. |