Illustration by Remington.

Through his hand-held telescope, Frank O’Ruark, a big-boned man with a sandy thatch of hair that shone brilliant in the summer sun when he was hatless, had watched the storm building all the day long from his screened back porch and it was from this station that he surveyed the elements of a seething fury gathering its forces to do no good.

The rolling, punching ebony clouds fascinated him. And as the tempest raged, waterfowl in great echelons marked the violent sky as they set their wings to sail into Pamlico Sound….a vast, watery land that hugs North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

Hour after hour he maintained surveillance, and he saw them all….the pintails, redheads, brant, and the Canada geese. His deep blue eyes captured the widgeon, black ducks, bufflehead, and scaup and the canvasbacks. And it was the canvasbacks, the silver backs, that he watched with merriment in his eyes. Cans were bringing five dollars apiece on the market, and he figured he could get into the thick of them and maybe get two or three night shots before they wised up. And even if he got but only one shot, well, he could shoot down a hundred or more. Once he killed 250 cans with two shots.

A strong wind came and throttled the house. Frank retreated into the house, and when he reappeared, he was fitted with a thick wool coat and a wool hat that covered his ears and the nape of his neck. And he remembered the year 1899 when the hurricane San Cirisco swept over the land killing people, splintering homes, and putting down ships and their crews along the coast. A mighty storm it was. He hoped he’d never see another of its make.

“Oy, mate,” he thought to himself as he kept his telescope fixed to the storm and to the hordes of ducks gathering in the sound to wait it out. And in his head, he could hear them purring like cats when hungry for milk.

“Ut’ll be a hot night this even’, mate” he said. “A hot night to do duckin’, mate. Ut’ll be a time to tell yore grandchildren if yer make ut back to tell.” And he laughed to himself.

Daron McLhinney, a small man slight of build but strong, and whose ancestry was Scottish, was down on the beach observing the storm. He stood there as the high waves came rolling in to meet with the land, where they crashed with a mighty roar.

McLhinney was a lifesaver…a coast watcher…and he knew there would be work to do by morning. He knew for certain that Frank O’Ruark would be out there in the turmoil for a night shot. None of the other market hunters would do it, but he knew Frank, and Frank, regardless of the punishment, would be out there tonight. Years later, when a writer came through the Banks, he talked to Daron McLhinney because Frank O’Ruark, now dead, had left his mark as the most famous market hunter to ply the trade up and down the Atlantic Coast.

“Frank was a rascal,” said Mclhiney. “But even a mon like Frank needed a lookin’ after. I couldn’t let a mon go down wi’ out tryin.’ Frank would’ve done the same fur me. But I truly believe to this day, even tho’ Frank never said a word, that th’ only way ‘e went out is ‘cause ‘e knew I’d come alookin.’ “

With the punt gun loaded and the skiff’s bottom greased like a newborn baby’s rump, the oarlocks padded to keep from squeaking while rowing, Frank set out.