The Wild-Fowlers 1 1 7 



looked for all the world like lazy brant, 

 reeled along the very surface of the great 

 lagoon, and a wedge of big Canada geese 

 came 



" Straight o'er Jersey's sandy borders, 

 O'er Long Island's sea-like sound, 

 Past Fire Island, bleak Montauk, 

 North, still north, unerring bound." 



The single battery having been success- 

 fully righted, the Captain entered the 

 dingy, made fast the battery's tow-line to 

 the stern of the stool boat, and the latter 

 craft's line to the stern of the little dingy, 

 and, plying the oars, pulled away to the 

 battery ground, two hundred yards south 

 of the sloop's anchorage. The water was 

 low, but the tide was slowly running in 

 upon the shallow beds of eel grass. A 

 hundred yards nearer the Captain and his 

 rigging the Coot would have been well 

 aground in any sort of tide. 



Delicious fumes of fresh, boiling coffee, 

 toasting biscuit, and frying bacon perme- 

 ated the crisp air, and little Adam looked 



