144 Wilderness Ways. 



you; he '11 break your back if he hits you." — So they 

 splashed away in a desperate fright, each one looking 

 back over his shoulder to see Hukweem come down, 

 which he would do at a terrific pace, striking the water 

 with a mighty splash, and shooting half across the 

 lake in a smother of white, before he could get his 

 legs under him and turn around. Then all the loons 

 would gather round him, cackling, shrieking, laughing, 

 with such a din as the little loon never heard in his 

 life before ; and he would go off in the midst of them, 

 telling them, no doubt, what a mighty thing it was to 

 come down from so high and not break his neck. 



A little later in the fall I saw those same loons do 

 an astonishing thing. For several evenings they had 

 been keeping up an unusual racket in a quiet bay, 

 out of sight of my camp. I asked Simmo what he 

 thought they were doing. — " O, I don' know, playin' 

 game, I guess, jus' like one boy. Hukweem do dat 

 sometime, wen he not hungry," said Simmo, going on 

 with his bean-cooking. That excited my curiosity; 

 but when I reached the bay it was too dark to see 

 what they were playing. 



One evening, when I was fishing at the inlet, the 

 racket was different from any I had heard before. 

 There would be an interval of perfect silence, broken 

 suddenly by wild yelling ; then the ordinary loon talk 



