Hukweem the Night Voice. 147 



looking sharp over the side into the clear water, I 

 would get a glimpse of her, just a gray streak with a 

 string of silver bubbles, passing deep and swift under 

 my canoe. So she went through the opening, and 

 appeared far out in the lake, where she would swim 

 back and forth, as if fishing, until I went away. As I 

 never disturbed her nest, and always paddled away 

 soon, she thought undoubtedly that she had fooled 

 me, and that I knew nothing about her or her nest. 



Then I tried another plan. I lay down in my canoe, 

 and had Simmo paddle me up to the nest. While the 

 loon was out on the lake, hidden by the grassy shore, 

 I went and sat on a bog, with a friendly alder bending 

 oyer me, within twenty feet of the nest, which was in 

 plain sight. Then Simmo paddled away, and Huk- 

 weem came back without the slightest suspicion. As 

 I had supposed, from the shape of the nest; she did not 

 sit on her two eggs ; she sat on the bog instead, and 

 gathered them close to her side with her wing. That 

 was all the brooding they had, or needed ; for within 

 a week there were two bright little loons to watch in- 

 stead of the eggs. 



After the first success I used to go alone and, while 

 the mother bird was out on the lake, would pull my 

 canoe up in the grass, a hundred yards or so below 

 the nest. From here I entered the alders and made 



