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When the swans were gone they were greatly missed; and those who had lately been amused by the little loon's antics scolded him for his thoughtlessness. The boy walked toward land again. There he stationed himself to see how the pool-snipe played. They resembled small storks; like these, they had little bodies, long legs and necks, and light, swaying movements; only they were not gray, but brown.
Sound has no power to express a profounder emotion of utter loneliness than the loon's cry. Standing in piny darkness on the lake's bank, or floating in dimness of mist or glimmer of twilight on its surface, you hear this wailing note, and all possibility of human tenancy by the shore or human voyaging is annihilated.
So said Simmo to me one night in explaining why the loon's cry is so wild and sad. Clote Scarpe, by the way, is the legendary hero, the Hiawatha of the northern Indians. Long ago he lived on the Wollastook, and ruled the animals, which all lived peaceably together, understanding each other's language, and "nobody ever ate anybody," as Simmo says.
From the wilderness came the brigades bearing their pelts, the hardy traders of the winter posts, striking hot the imagination through the mysterious and lonely allurement of their callings. For a brief season, transient as the flash of a loon's wing on the shadow of a lake, the post was bright with the thronging of many people.
And the reason The Loon's description of Will gave no clue to the girls was because of Grace's brother's temporary lameness, and his change due to poor living and ragged clothes. Then came happy days. Mr. and Mrs. Ford, rejoicing over the news of their son being found, sent word for him to stay with the girls, and they would join him in Florida.
Bob White's silver whistle, clear and sweet, the White throat's long call of "Canada, Canada, Canada," as though the little patriot could never tell all his love and joy in his beautiful home, the loon's eery laugh far away down the golden channel, and the whippoorwill and the cat-bird and the veery in the tree-tops. It was a wonderful night.
Apparently it had recovered its strength after a few hours' rest, but, as this bird can rise on the wing only from a body of water, over the surface of which it can paddle and flap for many rods, and as there was no pond or lake in all the neighbouring country, the Loon's fate was evident from the first. Birds are often swept to sea by storm winds from off shore.
With that dangerous bill drawn so far back out of the way, Tom's confidence in the stranger's peaceful intentions seemed almost complete, and, thus encouraged, he at last ventured forward with wondering, questioning eyes and quivering nostrils until he was only eighteen or twenty inches from the loon's smooth white breast.
Grace shrank from primitive rudeness and hated adventure. Living by rule she distrusted all she did not know. She thought it strange that Barbara, who feared nothing, let her go in front. They came to a pool. All round, the black tops of the pines cut the sky; the water was dark and sullen in the gloom. The trail followed its edge and when a loon's wild cry rang across the woods Grace stopped.
Koskomenos, half reptile though he seem, not only recognizes riparian rights, but he is also capable of friendship and that, too, for a moody prowler of the wilderness whom no one else cares anything about. Here is the proof. I was out in my canoe alone looking for a loon's nest, one midsummer day, when the fresh trail of a bull caribou drew me to shore.
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