BIRD STORIES 



No, they could not fight for their fives, but there was 

 one who could. For danger did not come to Heron 

 Camp without finding Ardea's Soldier at his post. 



Now the Plume-Hunters did not have bodies like croc- 

 odiles and leather wings, you know; but they were drag- 

 ons of a sort, for all that, for they carried brutal things 

 in their hands that belched forth smoke and pain and 

 death, and they were cruel of heart, and they had sold 

 themselves to do evil for the sake of the dollars that 

 covetous men and women would pay them for feathers. 



Dragons though they were, Ardea's Soldier met them 

 bravely. I like to think how brave he was; for was not 

 the fight he fought a fight for our good old Mother 

 Earth, that she might not lose those beautiful child- 

 ren of hers? If the world should be robbed of Snowy 

 Herons, it would be just so much less lovely, just so 

 much less wonderful. And have they no right to life, 

 since the same Power that gave life to men gave life 

 to them? And when we think about it this way, who 

 seems to have the better right to those plumes — 

 herons, or men and women? 



The Soldier believed in Ardea's right to life, believed 

 in it so deeply that he stood alone before the Plume- 

 Hunters and told them that, while he lived, the birds 

 of his camp should also live. 



And that is why they killed him — the dragons who 



130 



