A great change had come over Baldpate, too. 
He became restless and, like the other wild-fowl 
of the lake, devoted less time to feeding or dream- 
ing in the sunlight on some sheltered bank. A 
vast energy possessed his being which expressed 
itself in keeping him much upon the wing. On 
the slightest pretext flocks of. ducks would 
spring from the water and go hurrying away for 
miles before coming down again. Sometimes 
they would leave the lake and circle far out over 
the desert. 
One day Baldpate and his friends flew over a 
place where there were many houses. A man in 
the street looked up and said, ““See the ducks. 
Autumn has come.” This was at the town of 
Burnes twenty miles north of Malheur. A few 
days later the same flock rested and fed for a 
time in Cow Lake forty miles to the south. Even 
this was but a very little journey for a healthy 
duck, for it would require only something like 
an hour or two to wing back to the home waters. 
One still morning, as Baldpate was feeding 
close to the near-by shore-line, a strange booming 
sound came down from the desert perhaps half 
229 
