a struggle. Then she changed her tactics and appealed to my baser
passions. She fell to the ground and fluttered around me as if her
wing were broken. "Look!" she seemed to say, "I am bigger than that
poor little baby. If you must eat something, eat me! My wing is
lame. I can't fly. You can easily catch me. Let that little bird
go!" And so I did; and the whole family disappeared in the bushes
as if by magic. I wondered whether the mother was saying to
herself, after the manner of her sex, that men are stupid things,
after all, and no match for the cleverness of a female who stoops to
deception in a righteous cause.

Now, that trivial experience was what I call a piece of good luck--
for me, and, in the event, for the sandpiper. But it is doubtful
whether it would be quite so fresh and pleasant in the remembrance,
if it had not also fallen to my lot to take two uncommonly good
salmon on that same evening, in a dry season.

Never believe a fisherman when he tells you that he does not care
about the fish he catches. He may say that he angles only for the
pleasure of being out-of-doors, and that he is just as well
contented when he takes nothing as when he makes a good catch. He
may think so, but it is not true. He is not telling a deliberate
falsehood. He is only assuming an unconscious pose, and indulging
in a delicate bit of self-flattery. Even if it were true, it would
not be at all to his credit.

Watch him on that lucky day when he comes home with a full basket of
trout on his shoulder, or a quartette of silver salmon covered with
green branches in the bottom of the canoe. His face is broader than
it was when he went out, and there is a sparkle of triumph in his