nd made
them dive to get it.

As I paddled back to camp, I thought of the way the Indians taught
their boys to shoot. They hung their dinner from the trees, out of
reach, and made them cut the cord that held it, with an arrow. Did the
Indians originate this, I wonder, in their direct way of looking at
things, almost as simple as the birds'? Or was the idea whispered to
some Indian hunter long ago, as he watched Merganser teach her young
to dive?

Of all the broods I have met in the wilderness, only one, I think,
ever grew to recognize me and my canoe a bit, so as to fear me less
than another. It was on a little lake in the heart of the woods, where
we lingered long on our journey, influenced partly by the beauty of
the place, and partly by the fact that two or three bears roamed about
there, which I sometimes met at twilight on the lake shore. The brood
were as wild as other broods; but I met them often, and they sometimes
found the canoe lying motionless and harmless near them, without quite
knowing how it came there. So after a few days they looked at me with
curiosity and uneasiness only, unless I came too near.

There were six in the brood. Five were hardy little fellows that made
the water boil behind them as they scurried across the lake. But the
sixth was a weakling. He had been hurt, by a hawk perhaps, or a big
trout, or a mink; or he had swallowed a bone; or maybe he was just a
weak little fellow with no accounting for it. Whenever the brood were
startled, he struggled bravely a little while to keep up; then he
always fell behind. The mother would come back, and urge, and help
him; but it was of little use. He was not strong enough; and the last
glimpse I always had of them was a foamy wake disappearing round a
distant point, while far in the rear was a ripple where the little
fellow still paddled away, doing his best pathetically.

[Illustration]

One afternoon the canoe glided round a point and ran almost up to the
brood before they saw it, giving them a terrible fright. Away they
went on the instant, _putter, putter, putter_, lifting themselves
almost out of water with the swift-moving feet and tiny wings. The
mother bird took wing, returned and crossed the bow of the canoe, back
and forth, with loud quackings. The weakling was behind as usual; and
in a sudden spirit of curiosity or perversity--for I really had a good
deal of sympathy for the little fellow--I shot the canoe forward,
almost up to him.