36 JVays of Wood Folk. • 



when a deer stepped down the bank and never saw 

 me. Doing nothing pays one under such circum- 

 stances, if only by the glimpses it gives of animal life. 

 It is so rare to see a wild thing unconscious. 



Then Kwaseekho came into the shallow bay again 

 with her brood, and immediately they began dipping 

 as before. I wondered how the mother made them 

 dive, till I looked through the field-glass and saw that 

 the little fellows occasionally brought ujd something 

 to eat. But there certainly were no fish to be caught 

 in that warm, shallow water. An idea struck me, 

 and I pushed the canoe out of the grass, sending the 

 brood across the lake in wild confusion. There on 

 the black bottom were a dozen young trout, all freshly 

 caught, and all with the air-bladder punctured by the 

 mother bird's sharp bill. She had provided their 

 dinner, but she brought it to a good place and made 

 them dive to get it. 



As I paddled back to camp, I thought of the way 

 the Indians taught their boys to shoot. They hung 

 their dinner from the trees, out of reach, and made 

 them cut the cord that held it, with an arrow. Did 

 the Indians originate this, I wonder, in their direct 

 way of looking at things, almost as simple as the 

 birds' 1 Or was the idea whispered to some Indian 

 hunter long ago, as he watched Merganser teach her 

 young to dive t 



