36 THE CONDOR Vol. XX 



times fairly flopped down on the water in her eagerness to draw my fire. Be- 

 sides the ducks flushed from the slough, many others rose from the wet pasture 

 beyond. 



While following the fence, in the narrow water lane between it and the 

 high grass I had come upon two nests, presumably those of Coots — compact, 

 neat looking rafts of slough grass and large stalks, one brown and the other 

 green, as fresh and green with its grassy lining, as if just plucked. Each nest 

 contained nine small pointed and decidedly dingy eggs, lightly specked. When 

 I had turned from the fence and was heading out through the shoulder-high 

 grass toward the dry pasture long rods away, suddenly the green wall before 

 me gave way and in a bowl-like circle of open water I looked down with de- 

 light upon a third nest — a brown island, high on the water, high enough it 

 seemed to keep dry in all peradventures. Only eight eggs were here, but bits 

 of shell pointed to the ninth, and on the water close by I discovered the recent 

 occupant of the shell. Doubtless frightened by my approach, it had plunged 

 over the edge of the nest ; but the sudden change from its warm egg-shell to the 

 cold water was too much for it, and it let me pick it up, examine it and return 

 it to its brother eggs — droll little baby Coot, with its red sealing wax bill, dark 

 bluish frontal shield, red skull cap, and yellow and black hairs. Near by I 

 came to another nest, just begun, a few green stalks lying on the water ; so al- 

 together there was quite a Coot colony. 



After this day in the Big Slough, the Black Streak was on my mind for two 

 weeks longer, when I determined to reach its edge at least. By this time, from 

 wading in other sloughs and in the tule marsh along shore, I had tired of my 

 futile rubber boots. Hot and clumsy to walk in when dry, all too heavy when 

 full of water, impossible to withdraw from if stuck in a bog, and difficult to 

 dry out even with the help of a prairie wind and a stove, they were certain^ 

 ill-suited to the submerged tenth of North Dakota with which I was struggling. 

 So old shoes, or rubbers tied on over stockings had come to be my substitutes. 

 Leaving the farmhouse by a pathway through the wheat tracked up by the 

 pretty Flicker-tails, I waded out first over the hummocky ground with its 

 short tussocks, then straight out through the dense stand of brown-topped 

 slough grass to the very edge of the Black Streak, although in the rainy inter- 

 val the grass had grown from shoulder high to over the top of my hat, and the 

 water had deepened from knee to waist high. 



When I reached the open water of that magic Black Streak, I saw my mis- 

 take. It was deserted, except for taunting voices and vague forms half hidden 

 among the tules scattered over its surface. I had marched up boldly, demand- 

 ing the keys of the castle, when Nature denies her fortresses to all importun- 

 ates. Mystery and magic doubtless invested that secret domain, but — prosaic 

 facts — I was looking west when the sun blinded my eyes, my approach had 

 frightened away the birds, and the water was too cold for those threatened 

 Avith the infirmities of age to stand in pending their tardy return ! 



But let us be thankful for Life 's gracious compensations ! Wading 

 around slowly and aimlessly just enjoying myself, with the slough grass over 

 the top of my hat, I came to a better understanding of one of the most interest- 

 ing types of prairie cover. Fortunate indeed, to have come this year, for the 

 Big Slough now standing waist high in water, in ordinary seasons is mowed to 

 the fence bordering the Black Streak. When out in the midst of the hat-high 

 grass where you could not see over its brown surface, it carried the eye to the 



