THE KILLDEER 



methods we used. We worked two and one half hours over 

 him. We were bathed in perspiration, had crimson faces, were 

 breathless, our hats lost, our clothing torn on the bushes, our 

 hands and faces scratched, our feet bruised and twisted with 

 the stones, while close before us that little dandy, in his 

 elaborate suit, moved like a tiny airship, fresh as at the start. 

 He travelled as easily as a puff of thistledown rolling before 

 the wind. 



"We can keep this up forever ' I began. 

 "No, we can't," interrupted Molly-Cotton; "the sun is 

 that hot, I am so dizzy I can't see. I'll step on him next." 



She was right. We were so tired we were in danger of stumb- 

 ling and hurting the bird, while he was a runner that could keep 

 on all day. 



He had crossed one big stone repeatedly. I usually twisted 

 my foot in going over it. I left Molly-Cotton to watch the baby 

 and focussed sharply on that stone, heaping sand against it with 

 my hands, so that he could run up it easily. There were bushes 

 behind it, so stones and rotten wood were piled among them until 

 a thick wall was formed. Then a focussing cloth was staked be- 

 fore the camera, so that he would not run toward that, the shut- 

 ter moved up to the one five-hundredth of a second, then Molly- 

 Cotton was asked to turn him slowly and carefully that way once 

 again. The first time he crossed was a failure. 



I manoeuvred him back; Molly-Cotton turned him toward the 

 stone again. Twice he darted past. That was stopped by 

 blocking the path he took with pieces of wood. 'The fourth 

 time Molly-Cotton started him my way I moved closer to the 

 stone than before. As the tiny legs flashed up it, I loomed so 

 large on the other side that for one smallest fraction of a second 

 he hesitated. Then he went free, for in that instant I had se- 

 cured his likeness. 



109 



