182 



In Quest of 

 ^Waptonk 



immeasurable distance, she would sit listen- 

 ing with neck upstretched, hearing, and in 

 her heart answering, the call which had died 

 away on the boy's less sympathetic ears 



JlitrjyJlu After that there was no more joyous gab- 



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bling from Graylag. She would swim about 

 silently, now pecking angrily at the restrain- 

 ing string, now raising her head to look and 

 listen for her wild kindred, till twilight fell 

 sadly on the pond and she would go home 

 mute and passive under the boy's arm again. 

 One stormy day great luck headed towards 

 the boy and made his heart jump at the 

 thought of at last meeting the gray wanderers 

 of the upper air that had so often set his 

 heart a-longing. A great gang of wild geese, 

 flying lower than usual, with the sides of 

 their wedge broken by the sleet and irregu- 

 lar from weariness, passed near the pond on 

 their southern migration. Their faint, con- 

 fused honking roused all the wild longing in 

 the heart of Old Graylag. Something too in 

 their call, which she seemed to understand, 

 made her sure they would come this time, 

 and that she would know at last what the 



