THE TREASURE-HUNT 127 



dove whose nest he once found on the last day of 

 March. It was only a flat platform of dry sticks in 

 a spruce tree, and held two pearly- white eggs. The 

 day after he found it, there came a sudden snow- 

 storm, and when he saw the nest again, it was 

 covered with snow — but there was the mother-bird 

 still brooding her dear-loved eggs, with her head just 

 showing above the drifted whiteness. 



Beside the ruins of a spring-house, a gray bird with 

 a tilting tail said, "Phce, bee-bee, bee." It was the 

 little phoebe, so glad to be back that he stuttered 

 when he called his name. Thereafter the Captain 

 was moved to relate another anecdote. It seemed 

 a friend of his had stopped a pair of robins from 

 nesting over a hammock hung under an apple tree, 

 by nailing a stuffed cat right beside their bough. 

 Whereupon the two robins, when they came the next 

 morning, fled with loud chirps of dismay. When two 

 phoebes started to build on his porch, he tried the 

 same plan. He was called out of town the next day, 

 and when he came back a week later he found that 

 the phcebes had deserted their old nest. They had 

 however built a new one — on top of the cat's head. 



As the Band swung back into the far end of Roberts 

 Road, the Captain 's eye caught the gleam of a half- 

 healed notch which he had cut in a pin-oak sapling 

 the year before, at the top of a high bank, to mark 

 the winter-quarters of a colony of blacksnakes. 

 He halted the Band, and one by one they clambered 

 up the slope, stopping puflfingly at the first ledge, 

 and searching the withered grass and gray rocks 



