water had stood in the springtime, and which were still wet, were frozen in
the morning; and all the quiet waters had over them a thin skin of clear
ice. Great flocks of water birds were passing overhead, flying to the
south; and many of them stopped in the streams, resting and feeding. There
were ducks of many sorts, and the larger geese, and the great white birds
with black tips to their wings, and long yellow bills; and the cranes that
fly over, far up in the sky, looking like spots, but whose loud callings
are heard plainly as they pass along. Often we saw flocks of these walking
on the prairie, feeding on the grasshoppers; and sometimes they all stopped
feeding and stuck up their heads, and then began to dance together, almost
as people dance.

We boys used to travel far up and down the bottom, trying to creep up to
the edge of the bank, or to the puddles of water, where the different birds
sat, to get close enough to kill them with our arrows. It was not easy to
do this, for generally the birds saw us before we could get near enough;
and then, often, even if we had the chance to shoot, we missed, and the
birds flew away, and we had to wade out and get back our arrows.

One day I had gone with my friend a long way up the river, and we had tried
several times to kill ducks, but had always missed them. We had come to a
place where the point of a hill ran down close to the river, on our side,
and as we rounded the point of this hill, suddenly we saw close before us
three cranes, standing on the hillside; two of them were gray and further
off, but one quite near to us was still red, by which we knew that it was a
young one. I was ahead of my friend, and as soon as I saw the cranes I drew
my arrow to its head, and shot at the young one, which spread its wings and
flew a few yards, and then came down, lying on the hillside, with its wings
stretched wide, for the arrow had passed through its body. I rushed upon it
and seized it, while the old cranes flew away. Then I was glad, for this