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stubble. And high above these honking 

 companies so high, so far, the eye barely 

 notes them you see by ones or twos, or at 

 most threes, white-winged specks, sweeping 

 ever to north upon powerful pinions, too 

 tireless to need pause or stay. Those are 

 the great wild swans known to folk of the 

 country-side as bog-eagles. All winter long 

 they have plashed and preened in gulf- 

 marshes, in lake and bayou inland. Now, 

 the woodsmen tell you, they are bound for 

 the North Pole, and will make no stop this 

 side that resting-place. 



Certainly, these puny pools must ill-tempt 

 a bird so majestic flying, too, so high that 

 its harsh, ear -piercing note comes to you 

 the faintest dissonance. But it might stop 

 at the river-side. There miles upon miles of 

 still, gray, waveless waters lie wide over the 

 bottoms, either side the racing flood. For 

 our river runs down to a greater, that is 

 likewise at the flood-mark. All the hundred 

 miles betwixt us and the mouth, back water 

 spreads, smoothly lapping, faintly eddying, 

 over all the level land. 



There it lays up the tribute of its hun- 

 dred racing streams. Each comes to it, 

 bearing gift of rich earth and sand and silt, 

 stolen from hill-side or hollow or its own 



