108 WHERE ROLLS THE OREGON 



nearly been exterminated by the plume-hunter), 

 which they had discovered only the day before 

 off in the lake. We had ridden across the desert 

 that afternoon in the teeth of a stiff wind, and the 

 wardens, anxious to show us the new colony, 

 were greatly concerned for fear that this wind 

 might wreck the nests exposed to its sweep across 

 the wide level of the lake. 



For it was nesting-time and the colony had 

 built far out on the open water in a close, contin- 

 uous line a mile long and three hundred yards 

 wide, — a community of twenty-four hundred 

 floating nests. 



The figures are true. The wardens actually 

 staked off the colony, measured it, and literally 

 counted the nests. I paddled along its length 

 myself, and while I did not count, I did believe 

 their figures. 



It was to visit this colony of grebes that we 

 wound our way through the narrow turnings of 

 the Blitzen River out into the wider maze of the 

 vast lake, where there was nothing to be seen but 

 water and tules — and birds, myriads of birds. 

 But the wardens had blazed a trail by tying the 

 tule-tops together into big knots, which we could 



