n them swimming out from shore
one bright, beautiful spring morning, when the sun had just risen, and
the woods and waters lay calm and peaceful in the golden light, fairer
than words can tell. They were after their breakfast, and presently they
dived to see what was to be had. The light is dim down there in the
depths of the Glimmerglass, the weeds are long and slimy, and the mud of
the bottom is black and loathsome. But what does that matter? One can
go back whenever one pleases. A few quick, powerful strokes will take
you up into the open air, and you can see the woods and the sky. Aha!
There is a herring, his scales shining like silver in the faint green
light that comes down through the water. And there is a small salmon
trout, with his gray-brown back and his golden sides. A fish for each of
us.

The loons darted forward at full speed; but the two fish made no effort
to escape, and did not even wriggle when the long, sharp bills closed
upon them. They were dead, choked to death by the fine threads of a
gill-net. And now those same threads laid hold of the loons themselves,
and a fearful struggle began.

Mahng and his wife did not always keep their wings folded when they were
under water. Sometimes they used them almost as they did in flying, and
just now they had need of every muscle in their bodies. How their
pinions lashed the water, and how their legs kicked and their long necks
writhed, and how the soft mud rose in clouds and shut out the dim light!
But the harder they fought the more tightly did the net grapple them,
winding itself round and round their bodies, and soon lashing their
wings down against their sides. Expert divers though they were, the
loons were drowning. There was a ringing in their ears and a roaring in
their heads, and the very last atoms of oxygen in their lungs were
almost gone. Death was drawing very near, and the bright, sunshiny world
where they had been so happy a moment before, the world to which they
had thought they could return so quickly and easily, seemed a thousand
miles away. One last effort, one final struggle, and if that failed
there would be nothing more to do but go to sleep forever.

Fortunately for Mahng, his part of the net had been mildewed, and much
of the strength had gone out of the linen threads. He was writhing and
twisting with all his might, and suddenly he felt something give. One of
the rotten meshes had torn apart. He worked with redoubled energy, and
in