ng with him.

The pond narrows toward the head, and just before it becomes a creek again
the channel turns abruptly through the docks in against the right shore,
where the current curls and dimples darkly under the drooping branches of
great red maple; then it horseshoes into the middle, coming down through
small bush-islands and tangled brush which deepen into an extensive swamp.

June seemed a little tardy here, but the elder, the rose, and the panicled
cornel were almost ready, the button-bushes were showing ivory, while the
arrow-wood, fully open, was glistening snowily everywhere, its tiny flower
crowns falling and floating in patches down-stream, its over-sweet breath
hanging heavy in the morning mist. My nose was in the air all the way for
magnolias and water-lilies, yet never a whiff from either shore, so
particular, so unaccountably notional are some of the high-caste flowers
with regard to their homes.

The skiff edged slowly past the first of the islands, a mere hummock about
a yard square, and was turning a sharp bend farther up, when I thought I
had a glimpse of yellowish wings, a mere guess of a bird shadow, dropping
among the dense maple saplings and elder of the islet.

Had I seen or simply imagined something? If I had seen wings, then they
were not those of the thrasher,--the first bird that came to mind,--for
they slipped, sank, dropped through the bushes, with just a hint of
dodging in their movement, not exactly as a thrasher would have moved.

Drifting noiselessly back, I searched the tangle and must have been
looking directly at the bird several seconds before cutting it out from
the stalks and branches. It was a least bittern, a female. She was
clinging to a perpendicular stem of elder, hand over hand, wren fashion,
her long neck thrust straight into the air, absolutely stiff and
statuesque.

We were less than a skiff's length apart, each trying to outpose and
outstare the other. I won. Human eyes are none the strongest, neither is
human patience, yet I have rarely seen a creature that could outwait a
man. The only steady, straightforward eye in the Jungle was
Mowgli's--because it was the only one with a steady mind behind it. As
soon as the bird let herself look me squarely in the eye, she knew she was
discovered, that her little trick of turning into a stub was seen through;
and immediately, ruffling her feathers, she lowered her head, poked out
her neck at me, and swaying from side to side