the strong salt breeze
to dry him off like a towel afterwards. In his ears the crying of
sea-birds against grey clouds was the sweetest of music. He loved to
have the surf knock him about, and the sun burn him red, and he didn't
mind if pink jellyfish stung him now and then or a crab got hold of
his toes. The roar of the surf sang him to sleep at night like an old
nurse.

One day when the spring came, Wilf went out on the salt marshes, his
gun over his shoulder, to shoot wild ducks.

He was a regular water-baby.

Round about him all sorts of sea-birds were wheeling and crying. The
swift tidal currents found their way up-stream through the marshes.

Wilf, hot and tired, threw the gun on the sand, took off his clothes,
and plunged into the clear, cold water.

It carried him along like a boat, and he clambered out on a green
island.

"It's just like Robinson Crusoe!" he told himself. "Here I am, all
alone, and nobody in sight. I can do just as I please!"

He ran up and down in the sunlight, laughing and shouting in the wind
and throwing his arms about.

How good it felt to be alive!

"Guess I'll go back and get the gun," he said, "and see if I can't
shoot one of those wild ducks. I'll make mother a present of it for
dinner to-night."

It wasn't so easy to swim back. He had to fight against the current
that had carried him to the little green island.

It was less effort to leave the stream and scramble through the reeds
along the muddy bank.

Sometimes a stone or a shell hurt his foot, but he only laughed and
went on.

"You just wait, you ducks," he said. "You'd better look out when I
begin to shoot!"

He came to where the gun lay on his clothes, where he had been careful
to place it so that no sand would get into the muzzle.

He loaded it and fired, and it kicked his bare shoulder like a mule.

But he had the satisfaction of seeing one of the ducks fall into the
water, where the stream was at its widest, perhaps a hundred feet from
the bank.

Here the water ran swift and deep, and it was going to be a hard fight
to get that bird.

"I wish I had Rover with me now!" he told himself. Usually the dog
went with him and was the best of company,--but this time he must be
his own retriever.

He plunged into the stream again and swam with all his might toward
the bird.

If he had been getting it for himself, he would have been tempted to
give up. But he couldn't bear to quit when he thought of what a tr