14 THE LAST FORAY. 
gaunt, watching shapes, in the most sheltered 
lairs, awaiting the night. 
Night came, and a shiver ran throughout 
the land; then all was still. 
I don’t know exactly when the Spirit of the 
Blizzard came. It must have been in that 
specially unfaceable gust of passion the wind 
had just before dark. 
At least, that was the time when most of 
the half-dozen species of wild duck, who some- 
how accomplish that miracle of hardiness, 
roosting—roosting, mark you—out on the 
perishing cold sea all day, usually do what 
men call ‘the flight’ inland to feed during 
the night. 
And it was undoubtedly a painted blue- 
gray cock-wigeon, with buff cap atop and all, 
leading in his flock, whose trebly sharp 
‘weather’ eye first saw the shape. 
His view was short. A flash of a white 
body leaping out of the ever-shifting, on- 
hurrying curtain of white; wings sharp as 
tulwars, that ‘spoke’ as swords ‘speak ;’ eyes 
stabbing, implacable, haughty with the hauteur 
of kings of the East; and—ay, ‘twixt wing- 
beat and wing-beat it happened—the stab of 
a dagger right through to the bird’s heart, 
two daggers, three ! 
The flock scattered and ‘flared’ aloft; the 
