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