Blue-Bird Weather

Again, coming from the far north, the trumpets of the sky squadron were

sounding; they passed, wedge after wedge, sometimes in steady formation,

sometimes like a wavering band of witches, and again in shifting

battalions, sternly officered, passing through intricate aërial

maneuvers, and greeted by Uncle Dudley and the other decoys with wild

beseeching mixed with applause.

Snowy, angelic companies of swans came alternately with the geese; then

a whimpering, whispering flight of wild ducks, water-fowl in thousands

and tens of thousands, rushing onward through the aërial lanes.

But none came to the blind. Occasionally a wedge of geese wavered,

irresolute at the frantic persuasions of Uncle Dudley, but their leader

always dragged them back to their course, and the sagging, hesitating

ranks passed on.

Sometimes, in a nearer flight of swans, some long-necked, snowy creature

would bend its head to look curiously down at the tethered swans on the

water, but always they continued on, settling some two miles south of

Foaming Shoals, until there was half a mile of wild swans afloat there,

looking like a long, low bank of snow, touched with faintest pink by the

glow of the westering sun.