kill that bad egg-breaker. However, next morn- 
ing when he awoke a hermit thrush was singing 
near his window and its music, which is the 
sweetest note in all the northern woods, made 
‘him smile, so he went on as before, loving all 
birds of whatever kind, yes, even the big gull of 
No-Man’s-Land. 
Two or three days later he ran over to the 
island again. As he walked along, the young 
gulls would scamper through the grass ahead 
of him like little dirty sheep. The smaller ones 
that could not yet walk much would crouch 
down among the rocks or crawl under a bunch 
of weed-stalks and be so still that unless he just 
happened to see one he would never know it was 
there. 
While he was going along he found a young bird 
that was dead. He picked it up and looked at it 
closely. Evidently it had been pecked on the 
head. Pretty soon he found another that had 
died in the same way. ‘Then Mark began to 
get worried, and he looked all around to see 
if he could find the murderer. Away off at the 
western end of the island were some high, rocky 
11 
