WATCHING THE DAY DIE 233 



their night refuge. As fifty of these great, white 

 chaps, strung out in a magnificent undulating 

 line, winged over the yellow timber out into the 

 sunset, they made a picture rarely equalled in 

 the bird world. 



Soon another flock far to the southward 

 drifted into eye-shot. Though scarcely more 

 than a mist to the unaided eye, the glasses en- 

 larged them to about thirty more of the huge fel- 

 lows, circling slowly downward, evidently bent 

 on alighting in the big slough beyond the lake- 

 rim. Down, down, slowly, airily they drifted, 

 and at length disappeared below the horizon. 

 Then came another detachment of a score, ap- 

 pearing mystically from somewhere in the dull, 

 blue sky to the eastward, and they also drifted 

 away to the south, just as if they knew well — 

 which doubtless some of the old heads did — that 

 the farther slough was linked to the lake and 

 well stocked with young pike. They moved si- 

 lently along in Indian file — each one a tiny white 

 yacht in a leaden sea. For, at half a mile, their 

 black wing-tips faded from view and the sun 

 glinted only on the white of their huge pinions 

 and spotless bodies; thus was revealed why Na- 

 ture, so discerning in her gifts, gave to the peli- 



