The Mother Teal and the 

 Overland Route 



i 



GREEN-WINGED Teal 

 had made her nest in the 

 sedge by one of the grass- 

 edged pools that fleck the 

 sunny slope of the Riding 

 Mountain. The passing 

 half-breed, driving his 

 creaking ox-wagon, saw only a pond with the 

 usual fringe of coarse grass, beyond which was a 

 belt of willow scrub and an old poplar-tree. But 

 the little Teal in the rushes, and her neighbors, 

 the Flickers, on the near-by poplar, saw in the 

 nestling pool a kingdom, a perfect paradise, for 

 this was home. Now was the ripeness of the 

 love-moon, with the mother-moon at hand in its 



195 



