is family replying that he followed, searching the banks
mile after mile on either side, until finally he heard voices of his
kind. He located them, but it was only several staid old couples, a
long time mated, and busy with their nest-building. The Cardinal
returned to the sumac, feeling a degree lonelier than ever.

He decided to prospect in the opposite direction, and taking wing, he
started up the river. Following the channel, he winged his flight for
miles over the cool sparkling water, between the tangle of foliage
bordering the banks. When he came to the long cumbrous structures of
wood with which men had bridged the river, where the shuffling feet of
tired farm horses raised clouds of dust and set the echoes rolling with
their thunderous hoof beats, he was afraid; and rising high, he sailed
over them in short broken curves of flight. But where giant maple and
ash, leaning, locked branches across the channel in one of old Mother
Nature's bridges for the squirrels, he knew no fear, and dipped so low
beneath them that his image trailed a wavering shadow on the silver
path he followed.

He rounded curve after curve, and frequently stopping on a conspicuous
perch, flung a ringing challenge in the face of the 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.