morning. With every mile the way he followed grew more
beautiful. The river bed was limestone, and the swiftly flowing
water, clear and limpid. The banks were precipitate in some
places, gently sloping in others, and always crowded with a
tangle of foliage.

At an abrupt curve in the river he mounted to the summit of a big
ash and made boastful prophecy, "Wet year! Wet year!" and on all
sides there sprang up the voices of his kind. Startled, the
Cardinal took wing. He followed the river in a circling flight
until he remembered that here might be the opportunity to win the
coveted river mate, and going slower to select the highest branch
on which to display his charms, he discovered that he was only a
few yards from the ash from which he had made his prediction.
The Cardinal flew over the narrow neck and sent another call,
then without awaiting a reply, again he flashed up the river and
circled Horseshoe Bend. When he came to the same ash for the
third time, he understood.

The river circled in one great curve. The Cardinal mounted to
the tip-top limb of the ash and looked around him. There was
never a fairer sight for the eye of man or bird. The mist and
shimmer of early spring were in the air. The Wabash rounded
Horseshoe Bend in a silver circle, rimmed by a tangle of foliage
bordering both its banks; and inside lay a low open space covered
with waving marsh grass and the blue bloom of sweet calamus.
Scattered around were mighty trees, but conspicuous above any, in
the very center, was a giant sycamore, split at its base into
three large trees, whose waving branches seemed to sweep the face
of heaven, and whose roots, like miserly fingers, clutched deep