stle through the April airs, beneath the early suns and the
late morning stars. The sweet, wild chorus was stilled forever.

By the time Jimmy and his father arrived, crowds of people had descended
with stones and sticks anything they could lay their hands on--and were
beating the remaining spark of life out of the helpless birds, then
seizing and quarrelling over the bodies, without one word of pity or
regret for the dreadful catastrophe, so long as they could secure the
coveted specimens of this rare migratory bird. Then Jimmy noticed that
some few had actually escaped injury, but, before he could reach them,
older and stronger people had rushed upon the terrified and weakened
creatures, and were clubbing them to death.

"Stop it! stop it!" he shouted. "Those birds are not injured! Save them!
Let them go!"

"Not if _I_ know it!" yelled back a huge fellow with the face of a
greedy demon. "Why, these birds are worth twenty dollars apiece!"
he blurted, "and I'm going to have every one of them."

Down, down, down, went one after another as they tried to rise and
spread their magnificent wings, until only one remained. With the
quickness of a cat, Jimmy flung his thin little body between the
flopping victim and the upraised club.

"You strike that swan if you dare!" he cried, fiercely, glaring up at
the would-be murderer with indignant eyes.

"Hello, bantam! You after twenty dollars, too?" sneered the man.

"No; I'm after this swan's life, and I'm going to have it!" growled the
boy. "The bird is mine!"

"Yes, Jimmy," said his father, approaching sadly. "And it's the only one
that has life. I have counted one hundred and sixteen, either dead or
slain."*

[*It is a fact that occurred in April, 1908, that a company of one
hundred and sixteen whistling swans were carried over Niagara
Falls, and that the only one which escaped the weapons of
destroyers was rescued by a little boy, and cared for exclusively
by him.]

The boy took off his coat, wrapping it about the superb bird, then
carried it carefully to the elevator, and, soon after reaching the
summit of the shore, had it fed and tended, then gently crated for
shipment home. The tired bird submitted without protest to being
measured. From tip to tail it measured fifty-one inches, with the
magnificent expansion of wing of eighty-one inches, the only survivor of
that glorious white company that was whistling its way to the North. And
it was the kindly, boyish ha