; for when a young bird has tried many times for
his grace note without success, and then gets it unexpectedly, he is
so pleased with himself that he forgets he is not Whippoorwill, who
tries to sing as long as the brook without stopping, and so keeps up
the final _lillooleet-lillooleet_ as long as he has an atom of breath
left to do it with.

But of all the Killooleets,--and there were many that I soon
recognized, either by their songs, or by some peculiarity in their
striped caps or brown jackets,--the most interesting was the one who
first perched on my ridgepole and bade me welcome to his camping
ground. I soon learned to distinguish him easily; his cap was very
bright, and his white cravat very full, and his song never stopped at
the second note, for he had mastered the trill perfectly. Then, too,
he was more friendly and fearless than all the others. The morning
after our arrival (it was better weather, as Simmo and Killooleet had
predicted) we were eating breakfast by the fire, when he lit on the
ground close by, and turned his head sidewise to look at us curiously.
I tossed him a big crumb, which made him run away in fright; but when
he thought we were not looking he stole back, touched, tasted, ate the
whole of it. And when I threw him another crumb, he hopped to meet it.

After that he came regularly to meals, and would look critically over
the tin plate which I placed at my feet, and pick and choose daintily
from the cracker and trout and bacon and porridge which I offered him.
Soon he began to take bits away with him, and I could hear him, just
inside the fringe of underbrush, persuading his mate to come too and
share his plate. But she was much shyer than he; it was several days
before I noticed her flitting in and out of the shadowy underbrush;
and when I tossed her the first crumb, she flew away in a terrible
fright. Gradually, however, Killooleet persuaded her that we were
kindly, and she came often to meals; but she would never come near, to
eat from my tin plate, till after I had gone away.

Never a day now passed that one or both of the birds did not rest on
my tent. When I put my head out, like a turtle out of his shell, in
the early morning to look at the weather, Killooleet would look down
from the projecting end of the ridgepole and sing good-morning. And
when I had been out late on the lake, night-fishing, or following the
inlet for beaver, or watching the grassy points for caribou, or just
dr