104 WHERE ROLLS THE OREGON 



heron mothers came to hover over this scene of 

 death and destruction. Mother-love was but the 

 lure to slaughter. 



"By two o'clock in the afternoon, the day's 

 shoot ended. It took the rest of the day for the 

 hunters to collect the dead and take the plumes. 

 Stripping the plumes is rapid work. It takes but 

 the slash of the knife across the middle of the 

 back, a cut down each side, and a swift jerk. 



" Long after dark the plumers heard the steady 

 quacking clatter of young herons crying to be fed. 

 Far into the night, hoarse croaks sounded over the 

 still lake, greetings of those birds that had spent 

 the day fishing in distant swamps. It argued 

 good shooting again for the morrow. 



" The second day was a repetition of the first. 

 Heron numbers thinned rapidly. Here on these 

 two islands, the plumers harvested a crop that 

 yielded twelve hundred dollars in a day and a 

 half. They collected a load of plumes worth 

 their weight in gold. Were the California days of 

 '49 much better ? 



" Malheur has seen many such massacres, but 

 none so great as that. Little did we know of these 

 facts as we sat watching the blue herons coming 



