156 ON THE EDGE OF THE WILDERNESS 
He flew by the stars, over strange fields, cawing 
his tidings as he went, and making long détours 
to each side to cover all the area possible, and 
when the east reddened, he headed back, again 
swinging to left and right, cawing loudly, till he 
had gathered in more than a hundred and fifty 
crows behind him, coming by ones and twos and 
threes from many places. They reached the 
snowy road where the grain lay to find other 
crows there by the scores, then by the hundred, 
till the road for three miles, or all the way from 
the farmer’s door back to the outskirts of the 
village, was a wide ribbon of white with a jet 
black band running down the centre, a band com- 
posed of famished and feeding crows. By ten 
o'clock there was no grain left. But by ten 
o'clock the sun was up, the storm wind had 
abated, the snow began to melt a bit on south- 
ward facing rocks, and the crows were saved. 
After that, Jim did not go back to his pine to 
sleep alone. He was completely adopted into 
the band of three crows whose acquaintance he 
had first made, and became one of them. His 
period of loneliness was over. 
