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ns dropping, nerveless and trailing, into the dark, deceptive stream, which lured them like a snare to its breast. "Jimmy, Jimmy!" shouted Mr. Duffy, "they're swans, and they're dead played out! They're migrating north for the summer! I bet they've flown a thousand miles! See, boy, they're spent, dead beat!" Jimmy fairly held his breath. The magnificent band of birds were slowly floating towards them. Now they could distinguish each regal body, feathered in dazzling white, each bill, scarlet as a July poppy, each gracefully lifted throat. But the majestic creatures floated swiftly and silently on, on, on! "Father!" The boy's voice trembled huskily. "Oh, father, you don't think they are in any danger of going over, do you?" His begging, pleading tones revealed his own childish fears. "Oh, _surely_ not!" answered Mr. Duffy, but his tone lacked confidence. Then, after a brief silence, he almost groaned: "Jimmy, they're done for! They don't see their danger, and they're too tired to rise if they do. Oh, boy, if we could save them!" But Jimmy stood rigid, staring, his heart slowly breaking, breaking. Anyone could see now that the stately battalion was doomed. With utter unconsciousness they drifted on, exhausted with their far journey from the lagoons and marshes of Chesapeake Bay, where the torrid suns had driven them from their winter haunts, to wing their way to their summer home in the far, white North. "Oh, Jimmy, the pity of it!" murmured Mr. Duffy. But the boy stood wordless, as the irresistible giant current caught the trusting birds and swept them, with a hideous, overpowering force, to the very brink of the Horseshoe Fall. The boy, thrilling with the horror of it, shut his eyes, and flung himself, face downward, on the rocks. A strange, inarticulate moan left the man's lips. The boy lifted his head, lifted his eyes, but the river was empty. They ran breathlessly across the cobwebby bridges, around Goat Island, then to the shore, then to the elevator, and descended to the ice-bridge; but, above the angry battle of Niagara, arose the plaintive, dying cries of scores of snow-white birds, the shouts of gathering sightseers. Against the ruthless edges of ice lay, bleeding and broken, what was left of that superb company homeward bound. Their poor, twisted legs, their crushed heads, their flattened bodies, their pitiful, dying struggles, would melt a heart of stone. No more those graceful throats would whi
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