206 WHERE ROLLS THE OREGON 



ing heart between my thumb and finger, looked 

 into her mild eyes, and tried to think that at last 

 I held captive, in my hand, one of Mother Carey's 

 chickens, " little Peter," the walker of the waves, 

 the rider of curling crests, the lover of stormy 

 seas. 



But I could not think it. This was not the 

 stormy petrel. This was only a small bunch of 

 throbbing feathers the least of all the web-footed 

 birds. For so much greater is the power of the 

 bird, so much mightier its spirit than its heart- 

 beat and spread of wing, and with so much more 

 had my imagination endowed her than with mere 

 feathers and webbed feet, that I had to open my 

 hand and free her in order to know that I had 

 had her the bird of evil omen to the sailor, 

 harbinger of foul weather, spirit of the sea wind 

 and the wave. 



She darted from my hand with a quick zigzag 

 motion, as if dazzled with the sunshine, dipped 

 over the rim of the top and with a flap was 

 gone. 



There was not a ray of sunshine, as a matter 

 of fact, when I turned from following the bird to 

 look at the sky. The afternoon was still young, 



