ough he WAS
a ventriloquist. The 'ka-cocka' would come all right, but the
'co-ka-koo-oi-oo' seemed to come from a distance. And sometimes the
whole crow would go wrong, and come back like an echo that had been lost
for a year. Bill would stand on tiptoe, and hold his elbows out, and
curve his neck, and go two or three times as if he was swallowing
nest-eggs, and nearly break his neck and burst his gizzard; and then
there'd be no sound at all where he was--only a cock crowing in the
distance.

"And pretty soon we could see that Bill was in great trouble about it
himself. You see, he didn't know it was himself--thought it was another
rooster challenging him, and he wanted badly to find that other bird.
He would get up on the wood-heap, and crow and listen--crow and listen
again--crow and listen, and then he'd go up to the top of the paddock,
and get up on the stack, and crow and listen there. Then down to the
other end of the paddock, and get up on a mullock-heap, and crow and
listen there. Then across to the other side and up on a log among the
saplings, and crow 'n' listen some more. He searched all over the place
for that other rooster, but, of course, couldn't find him. Sometimes
he'd be out all day crowing and listening all over the country, and then
come home dead tired, and rest and cool off in a hole that the hens had
scratched for him in a damp place under the water-cask sledge.

"Well, one day Page brought home a big white rooster, and when he let
it go it climbed up on Page's stack and crowed, to see if there was any
more roosters round there. Bill had come home tired; it was a hot day,
and he'd rooted out the hens, and was having a spell-oh under the cask
when the white rooster crowed. Bill didn't lose any time getting out and
on to the wood-heap, and then he waited till he heard the crow again;
then he crowed, and the other rooster crowed again, and they crowed at
each other for three days, and called each other all the wretches they
could lay their tongues to, and after that they implored each other
to come out and be made into chicken soup and feather pillows. But
neither'd come. You see, there were THREE crows--there was Bill's crow,
and the ventriloquist crow, and the white rooster's crow--and each
rooster thought that there was TWO roosters in the opposition camp, and
that he mightn't get fair play, and, consequently, both were afraid to
put up their hands.

"But at last Bill couldn't stand it any lon