Quintet 



79. 



I TURNED MY CANOE TOWARD THE 



float just as the colored lights on the district advertising signs 

 began to flash. I was tired but well pleased with a trip that 

 had been full of fruitful experience, and delightfully com- 

 fortable as well. I had left home after breakfast and had 

 found the marsh free of the early morning fog that fre- 

 quently invaded it in late September. The air had been clear 

 all day. In the morning the Cascades were flat and dark but 

 the climbing sun illuminated the few valleys and ridges 

 which I could see in the Olympics; in the afternoon condi- 

 tions reversed so that it was the' Cascades that stood bright 

 and warm in the sunshine while the shadows darkened the 

 flanks of the Olympics. Coolness marked the early morning, 

 a light breeze followed until the sun passed the zenith and 

 brought an afternoon full of warmth and ease. 



I had planned to search, not for mammals, but for those 

 slow and elusive marsh birds known as rails. They seemed to 

 lose some of their characteristic shyness in fall, and I wanted 

 to check them over and confirm my belief that a bird that 

 I had seen the year before, and which I thought was too big 

 to be either a sora or Virginia rail, might prove to be a clap- 



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