Back again, splash, splosh, through mud and mire, two hours' ride to our camp-fire--a picturesque scene with our marsh-bred friends gathered round, their tawny faces lurid in the firelight as flames shoot upwards and pine-cones crack like pistol-shots; and over the embers hang a score of teal each impaled on a supple bough. Away beyond there loom like spectres our horses tethered when silvery moonlight glances through scattered pines. Things would have been pleasant indeed had the rain but stopped occasionally. True we had our tents; but our men slept in the open, each rolled in his cloak, beneath some sheltering bush. CHAPTER IX WILDFOWL-SHOOTING IN THE MARISMA ITS PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE Vast as their aggregations may be, yet wildfowl do not necessarily--merely by virtue of numbers--afford any sort of certainty to the modern fowler. Half-a-million may be in view day by day, but in situations or under conditions where scarce half-a-score can be killed. This elementary feature is never appreciated by the uninitiated, nor probably ever will be since Hawker's terse and trenchant prologue failed to fix it.[19] What "the Colonel" wrote a century ago stands equally good to-day; and _mutatis mutandis_ will probably stand good a century hence. [Illustration] Long before the authors had appeared on the scene with breech-loaders--even before the epoch of Hawker with his copper-caps and detonators--the Spanish fowlers of the marisma had already devised means of their own whereby the swarming wildfowl could be secured by wholesale. As a market venture, their system of a stalking-horse (called a _cabresto_) was deadly in the extreme and interesting to boot, affording unique opportunity of closely approaching massed wildfowl while still unconscious of danger. We have spent delightful days crouching behind these shaggy ponies, and describe the method later. But this is not a style that at all subserves the aspirations of the modern gunner, and we here study the problem from his point of view. The essence of success lies in ascertaining precisely the exact areas where fowl in quantity are "strongly haunted," by day and night, together with their regular lines of flight thence and thereto. Obviously such exact knowledge in these vast marismas, devoid of landmarks, demands careful observation, and it must be remembered that these things change with every change of weather and water. Having located such well-frequented resorts or flight-lines, the degree of success will yet depend on the _strength_ of the "haunt." It may happen (despite all care) that the partiality of the fowl for that special spot or route is merely superficial and evanescent. A dozen shots and they have cleared out, or altered their course. In the reverse case, so strong may be their "haunt" that no amount of disturbance entirely drives them away, and even those that have already been scared by the sound of shooting will yet return again and again.