m on the river embankment.
A brown thrush silently slipped like a snake between shrubs and trees,
and catching the universal excitement, began to flirt his tail and utter
a weird, whistling cry.

With one eye on the bird, and the other on the Girl sitting in amazed
silence, the Harvester began working for effect. He lay quietly, but in
turn he answered a dozen birds so accurately they thought their mates
were calling, and closer and closer they came. An oriole in orange and
black heard his challenge, and flew up the river bank, answering
at steady intervals for quite a time before it was visible, and in
resorting to the last notes he could think of a quail whistled "Bob
White" and a shitepoke, skulking along the river bank, stopped and
cried, "Cowk, cowk!"

At his limit of calls the Harvester changed his notes and whistled and
cried bits of bird talk in tone with every mellow accent and inflection
he could manage. Gradually the excitement subsided, the birds flew and
tilted closer, turned their sleek heads, peered with bright eyes, and
ventured on and on until the very bravest, the wren and the jay, were
almost in touch. Then, tired of hunting, Belshazzar came racing and the
little feathered people scattered in precipitate flight.

"How do you like that kind of a noise?" inquired the Harvester.

The Girl drew a deep breath.

"Of course you know that was the most exquisite sight I ever saw," she
said. "I never shall forget it. I did not think there were that many
different birds in the whole world. Of all the gaudy colours! And they
came so close you could have reached out and touched them."

"Yes," said the Harvester calmly. "Birds are never afraid of me. At
Medicine Woods, when I call them like that, many, most of them, in fact,
eat from my hand. If you ever have looked at me enough to notice bulgy
pockets, they are full of wheat. These birds are strangers, but I'll
wager you that in a week I can make them take food from me. Of course,
my own birds know me, because they are around every day. It is much
easier to tame them in winter, when the snow has fallen and food is
scarce, but it only takes a little while to win a bird's confidence at
any season."

"Birds don't know what there is to be afraid of," she said.

"Your pardon," said the Harvester, "but I am familiar with them, and
that is not correct. They have more to fear than human beings. No one is
going to kill you merely to see if he can shoot straight en