here.

The heron family were wading the mouth of the creek. Freckles idly
wondered whether the nerve-racking rasps they occasionally emitted
indicated domestic felicity or a raging quarrel. He could not decide. A
sheitpoke, with flaring crest, went stalking across a bare space
close to the creek's mouth. A stately brown bittern waded into the
clear-flowing water, lifting his feet high at every step, and setting
them down carefully, as if he dreaded wetting them, and with slightly
parted beak, stood eagerly watching around him for worms. Behind him
were some mighty trees of the swamp above, and below the bank glowed a
solid wall of goldenrod.

No wonder the ancients had chosen yellow as the color to represent
victory, for the fierce, conquering hue of the sun was in it. They had
done well, too, in selecting purple as the emblem of royalty. It was a
dignified, compelling color, while in its warm tone there was a hint of
blood.

It was the Limberlost's hour to proclaim her sovereignty and triumph.
Everywhere she flaunted her yellow banner and trailed the purple of her
mantle, that was paler in the thistle-heads, took on strength in the
first opening asters, and glowed and burned in the ironwort.

He gazed into her damp, mossy recesses where high-piled riven trees
decayed under coats of living green, where dainty vines swayed and
clambered, and here and there a yellow leaf, fluttering down, presaged
the coming of winter. His love of the swamp laid hold of him and shook
him with its force.

Compellingly beautiful was the Limberlost, but cruel withal; for inside
bleached the uncoffined bones of her victims, while she had missed
cradling him, oh! so narrowly.

He shifted restlessly; the movement sent the snake-feeders skimming. The
hum of life swelled and roared in his strained ears. Small turtles, that
had climbed on a log to sun, splashed clumsily into the water. Somewhere
in the timber of the bridge a bloodthirsty little frog cried sharply.
"KEEL'IM! KEEL'IM!"

Freckles muttered: "It's worse than that Black Jack swore to do to me,
little fellow."

A muskrat waddled down the bank and swam for the swamp, its pointed nose
riffling the water into a shining trail in its wake.

Then, below the turtle-log, a dripping silver-gray head, with shining
eyes, was cautiously lifted, and Freckles' hand slid to his revolver.
Higher and higher came the head, a long, heavy, furcoated body arose,
now half, now three-fourths from t