ds to the reeds, through which the
punt was pushed till it and its occupants were hidden, when, having
thrust down the pole as an anchor to steady the little vessel, the line
was drawn tight so as to try whether it would act, and then kept just so
tense as to be invisible beneath the water, and secured to the edge of
the punt.

"That ought to bring them, lads," said Dave, with his eyes twinkling
beneath his fox-skin cap, after beating a few reeds aside so that they
could have a good view of where the unfortunate peewits fluttered at the
pegs.

"But suppose they don't come?" said Tom. "I know if I was a piewipe I
wouldn't be cheated by a few dummies and some pegged-down birds."

"But then you are not a piewipe, only a goose," said Dick.

"Hist!" whispered Dave, and placing his fingers to his mouth he sent out
over the grey water so exact an imitation of the green plover's cry that
Dick looked at him in wonder, for this was something entirely new.

_Pee-eugh, pee-eugh, pee-eugh_! And the querulous cry was answered from
a distance by a solitary lapwing, which came flapping along in a great
hurry, sailed round and round, and finally dropped upon the little
narrow island and began to run about.

"You won't pull for him, will you, Dave?" whispered Dick.

Dave shook his head, and the boys watched as from time to time the man
uttered the low mournful cry.

"Wonder what that chap thinks of the stuffed ones?" whispered Dick.

"Why don't the live ones tell him it isn't safe?" said Tom.

"Don't know; perhaps they're like old Tom Tallington," said Dick:
"whenever they get into a mess they like to get some one else in it
too."

"You say that again and I'll hit you," whispered Tom, holding up his
fist menacingly.

"Hist!" came from Dave, who uttered the imitation of the peewit's
whistle again, and a couple more of the flap-winged birds came slowly
over the grey-looking water, which to anyone else, with its patches of
drab dry weeds and bared patches of black bog, would have seemed to be a
terrible scene of desolation, whereas it was a place of enchantment to
the boys.

"They come precious slowly," said Dick at last. "I thought that there
would have been quite a crowd of birds, like you see them sometimes.
Look at the old bald-heads, Tom."

He pointed to a party of about half a dozen coots which came slowly out
of the reeds and then sailed on again as if suspicious of all being not
quite right.

Then there was an