which
led to the railroad station. I followed, thinking the drake would soon
lose his bearings, and get hopelessly confused in the tangle of roads
that converged at the station.

But he seemed to have an exact map of the country in his mind; he soon
left the station road, went around a house, through a vineyard, till
he struck a stone fence that crossed his course at right angles; this
he followed eastward till it was joined by a barbed wire fence, under
which he passed and again entered the highway he had first taken. Then
down the road he paddled with renewed confidence: under the trees,
down a hill, through a grove, over a bridge, up the hill again toward
home.

Presently he found his clue cut in two by the railroad track; this was
something he had never before seen; he paused, glanced up it, then
down it, then at the highway across it, and quickly concluded this
last was his course. On he went again, faster and faster.

He had now gone half the distance, and was getting tired. A little
pool of water by the roadside caught his eye. Into it he plunged,
bathed, drank, preened his plumage for a few moments, and then started
homeward again. He knew his home was on the upper side of the road,
for he kept his eye bent in that direction, scanning the fields. Twice
he stopped, stretched himself up, and scanned the landscape intently;
then on again. It seemed as if an invisible cord was attached to him,
and he was being pulled down the road.

Just opposite a farm lane which led up to a group of farm buildings,
and which did indeed look like his home lane, he paused and seemed to
be debating with himself. Two women just then came along; they lifted
and flirted their skirts, for it was raining, and this disturbed him
again and decided him to take to the farm lane. Up the lane he went,
rather doubtingly, I thought.

In a few moments it brought him into a barn-yard, where a group of hens
caught his eye. Evidently he was on good terms with hens at home, for
he made up to these eagerly as if to tell them his troubles; but the
hens knew not ducks; they withdrew suspiciously, then assumed a
threatening attitude, till one old "dominic" put up her feathers and
charged upon him viciously.

Again he tried to make up to them, quacking softly, and again he was
repulsed. Then the cattle in the yard spied this strange creature and
came sniffing toward it, full of curiosity.

The drake quickly concluded he had got into the wrong plac