night's feeding. Up on the burned hillside 

 the partridges said, Kwit, kwit ! when I ap- 

 peared, and jumped to a tree and craned their 7(oskomenos 

 necks to see what I was. The black ducks ff^e ^^^Oulcasf 



skulked in the reeds. They were full-grown 

 now and strong of wing, but the early hiding 

 habit was not yet broken up by shooting. 

 They would glide through the sedges, and 

 double the bogs, and crouch in a tangle till 

 the canoe was almost upon them, when with 

 a rush and a frightened hark-ark ! they shot 

 into the air and away to the river. The 

 mink, changing from brown to black, gave 

 up his nest-robbing for honest hunting, 

 undismayed by trap or deadfall; and, up in 

 the inlet, I could see grassy domes rising 

 above the bronze and gold of the marsh, 

 where Musquash was building thick and 

 high for winter cold and spring floods. 

 Truly it was good to be here, and to enter 

 for a brief hour into the shy, wild, but unhar- 

 ried life of the wood folk. 



A big bullfrog showed his head among the 

 lily pads, and the little rifle, unmindful of the 

 joys of an unharried existence, rose slowly to 



