XIV. 



A MYSTERIOUS TRAGEDY. 



ON a peg just inside the door of the ranch- 

 man's old wine shed hung -one of the horses' un- 

 used nosebags. A lad on the place told me that 

 a wren had a nest in it, and added that he had 

 seen a fight between the wren and a pair of 

 linnets who seemed to be trying to steal her 

 material. 



The first time I went to the wine shed both 

 wrens and linnets were there, but nothing hap- 

 pened and I forgot about the original quarrel. 

 By peering through a crack in the boarding I 

 could look down on the wren in the nosebag in- 

 side. I could see her dark eyes, the white line 

 over them, and her black barred tail. She was 

 Vigor's wren. She got so tame that she would 

 not stir when the creaking door was opened close 

 by her, or when people were talking in the shed ; 

 and I used to go often to see how her affairs were 

 progressing. 



All her eggs hatched in time, and the small 

 birds, from being at first all eyeball, soon got to 

 be all bill. When I opened the bag to look at 

 them, the light woke them up and they opened 

 their mouths, showing chasms of yellow throat. 



