e night with me?' he asked,
gettin' more an' more excited.

"`No, stranger, I won't,' says I; `but if you'll come to mine I'll feed
you an' make you heartily welcome,' for somehow I'd took quite a fancy
to the critter.

"`I'll go,' says he, an' he went an' we had such a night of it! He
didn't let me have a wink o' sleep till pretty nigh daylight the next
mornin', an' axed me more questions about birds an' beasts an' fishes
than I was iver axed before in the whole course o' my life--an' it
warn't yesterday I was born. I began to feel quite like a settlement
boy at school. An' he set it all down, too, as fast as I could speak,
in the queerest hand-writin' you ever did see. At last I couldn't stand
it no longer.

"`Mister Ornithologist' says I.

"`Well,' says he.

"`There's a pecooliar beast in them parts,' says I, `'as has got some
pretty stiff an' settled habits.'

"`Is there?' says he, wakin' up again quite fresh, though he had been
growin' sleepy.

"`Yes,' says I, `an' it's a obstinate sort o' brute that won't change
its habits for nobody. One o' these habits is that it turns in of a
night quite reg'lar an' has a good snooze before goin' to work next day.
Its name is Mahoghany Drake, an' that's me, so I'll bid you good-night,
stranger.'

"Wi' that I knocked the ashes out o' my pipe, stretched myself out wi'
my feet to the fire, an' rolled my blanket round me. The critter larfed
again at this as if it was a great joke, but he shut up his book, put it
and the bag o' leetle birds under his head for a pillow, spread himself
out over the camp like a great spider that was awk'ard in the use o' its
limbs, an' went off to sleep even before I did--an' that was sharp
practice, let me tell you.

"Well," continued the trapper, clasping his great bony hands over one of
his knees, and allowing the lines of humour to play on his visage, while
the boys drew nearer in open-eyed expectancy, "we slep' about three
hours, an' then had a bit o' breakfast, after which we parted, for he
said he knew his way back to the camp, where he left his friends; but
the poor critter didn't know nothin'--'cept ornithology. He lost
himself an took to wanderin' in a circle arter I left him. I came to
know it 'cause I struck his trail the same arternoon, an' there could be
no mistakin' it, the length o' stride bein' somethin' awful! So I
followed it up.

"I hadn't gone far when I came to a place pretty much like this, as I
said befor