"THE PARTRIDGES" OF MUSKOKA 225 



<c Something was wrong in my call ; the birds 

 were suspicious, knowing not what danger had 

 kept their fellows silent so long, and now threat- 

 ened them out of the black alders. A moment's 

 intent listening : then the leader stepped slowly 

 down his log and came cautiously, halting, hiding, 

 listening, gliding, swinging far out to one side 

 and back again in stealthy advance, till he drew 

 himself up abruptly at the sight of my face 

 peering out of the underbrush. For two minutes 

 he never stirred so much as an eyelid. Then 

 he glided swiftly back, with a faint, puzzled, 

 questioning kwit-kwit, to where his flock were 

 waiting. A low signal that I could barely hear, 

 a swift movement then the flock thundered 

 away in scattered flight into the silent friendly 

 woods. 



"Ten minutes later I was crouched in some 

 thick underbrush, looking up into a great spruce, 

 when I could just make out the leader standing 

 by an upright branch in sharp silhouette against 

 the glowing west. I had followed his swift flight, 

 and now lay listening again to his searching call 

 as it went out through the twilight, calling his 

 little flock to the roosting tree. From the swamp 

 and hillside, and far down by the quiet lake, they 



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