r,
like the splash from a steamer's paddles. And he had a rudder, too, for
in the after part of his body there were two muscles just like
tiller-ropes, fastened to his tail in such a way that they could twist
it to either side, and steer him to port or starboard as occasion
demanded. With his long neck stretched far out in front, his wings
pressed tightly against his sides, and his legs and feet working as
if they went by steam, he shot through the water like a submarine
torpedo-boat. "The Herdsman of the Deep," the Scottish Highlanders used
to say, when in winter a loon came to visit their lochs and fiords.
Swift and strong and terrible, he ranged the depths of the Glimmerglass,
seeking what he might devour; and perhaps you can imagine how hastily
the poor little fishes took their departure whenever they saw him coming
their way. Sometimes they were not quite quick enough, and then his long
bill closed upon them, and he swallowed them whole without even waiting
to rise to the surface.

The chase thus brought to a successful conclusion, or perhaps the supply
of air in his lungs giving out, he returned to the upper world, and
again his voice rang out through the darkness and the falling snow. Then
his wife would answer him from somewhere away off across the lake, and
they would call back and forth to each other with many a laugh and
shout, or, drawing closer and closer together, they would cruise the
Glimmerglass side by side, with the big flakes dropping gently on their
backs and folded wings, and the ripples spreading out on either hand
like the swell from the bow of a ship.

Once Mahng stayed down a little longer than usual, and when he came up
he heard his wife calling him in an excited tone, as if something had
happened to her. He hurried toward her, and presently he saw a light
shining dimly through the throng of moving snow-flakes, and growing
brighter and brighter as he approached until it was fairly dazzling. As
he drew nearer still he caught sight of his wife sitting on the water
squarely in front of that light, and watching it with all her eyes. She
was not calling now. She had forgotten Mahng, she had forgotten to
paddle, she had forgotten everything, in her wonder at this strange,
beautiful thing, the like of which had never before been seen upon the
Glimmerglass. She herself was a rarely beautiful sight--if she had only
known it--with the dark water rippling gently against her bosom, her big
black head th