WITH THE MOUNTED POLICE 29 



doing the very same. Some residents assured me that 

 this was the style of all the Chipewyans as well as the 

 Crees. 



That night we camped far down the river and on the 

 side opposite the Fort, for experience soon teaches one 

 to give the dogs no chance of entering camp on ma- 

 rauding expeditions while you rest. About ten, as I 

 was going to sleep, Preble put his head in and said: 

 "Come out here if you want a new sensation." 



In a moment I was standing with him under the tall 

 spruce trees, looking over the river to the dark forest, 

 a quarter mile away, and listening intently to a new 

 and wonderful sound. Like the slow tolling of a soft 

 but high-pitched bell, it came. TtTig, ting, ting, ting, 

 and on, rising and falling with the breeze, but still 

 keeping on about two "tings" to the second, and on, 

 dulling as with distance, but rising again and again. 



It was unlike anything I had ever heard, but Preble 

 knew it of old. "That," says he, "is the love-song of 

 the Richardson Owl. She is sitting demurely in some 

 spruce top while he sails around, singing on the wing, 

 and when the sound seems distant, he is on the far 

 side of the tree." 



Ting, ting, ting, ting, it went on and on, this soft 

 belling of his love, this amorous music of our northern 

 bell-bird. 



Ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, 

 TING, ting — oh, how could any lady owl resist such 

 strains? — and on, with its ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, 

 ting, ting, ting, the whole night air was vibrant. Then, 

 as though by plan, a different note — the deep boom- 



