tered. It seemed strange that almost every 
man they saw had a gun, and that he tried to 
kill them. How different the people all seemed 
to be from Triska, their friend away back on 
dear old Malheur! Naturally they soon de- 
veloped a fear of man which made them exceed- 
ingly wary, and the younger ducks quickly 
gathered wisdom, without which they would not 
live long in this bright world of ours. 
IV 
In TIME they came to a country where the 
men looked different from those they had seen 
before. For one thing, they all wore very 
large hats with high pointed crowns. These 
people did not seem much interested in wild 
“ducks and seldom disturbed them when they 
paused to rest and feed. Baldpate and_ his 
friends had a rather peaceful time in this land 
for the next two or three weeks and no harm 
befell them until one day they flew down to 
light in a pond that they had just discovered. 
Baldpate by chance was a little behind the 
others and to this fact he owed his life. The 
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