WATCHING THE DAY DIE 233 



their night refuge. As fifty of these great, white 

 chaps, strung out in a magnificent undulating 

 line, winged over the yellow timber out into the 

 sunset, they made a picture rarely equalled in 

 the bird world. 



Soon another flock far to the southward 

 drifted into eye-shot. Though scarcely more 

 than a mist to the unaided eye, the glasses en- 

 larged them to about thirty more of the huge fel- 

 lows, circling slowly downward, evidently bent 

 on alighting in the big slough beyond the lake- 

 rim. Down, down, slowly, airily they drifted, 

 and at length disappeared below the horizon. 

 Then came another detachment of a score, ap- 

 pearing mystically from somewhere in the dull, 

 blue sky to the eastward, and they also drifted 

 away to the south, just as if they knew well 

 which doubtless some of the old heads did that 

 the farther slough was linked to the lake and 

 well stocked with young pike. They moved si- 

 lently along in Indian file each one a tiny white 

 yacht in a leaden sea. For, at half a mile, their 

 black wing-tips faded from view and the sun 

 glinted only on the white of their huge pinions 

 and spotless bodies ; thus was revealed why Na- 

 ture, so discerning in her gifts, gave to the peli- 



