a millionnaire brewer blown in
its side. Sometimes he was on the surface, and sometimes he was under
it; but wherever he went that horrible thing was close behind him,
pulling so hard that the sharp cord cut the corners of his mouth till it
bled. Once or twice he tried to fly, but the line caught his wing and
brought him down again. When he dived, it tangled itself around his legs
and clogged the machinery; and when he tried to shout, the hook in his
throat would not let him do anything more than cough. The Dutchman got
him at last, and eventually Mahng got his widow, as you shall see.

She had her children to take care of, and for a time she was very busy,
but after a few weeks they flew away to the south, as Mahng's had done,
and she was free to go where she liked and do what she pleased. For a
while she stayed where she was, like a sensible person. Minnesota suited
her very well, and she was in no hurry to leave. But, of course, she
could not stay on indefinitely, for some frosty night the lake would
freeze over, and then she could neither dive for fish nor rise upon the
wing. A loon on ice is about as helpless as an oyster. And so at last
she, too, went south. She travelled by easy stages, and had a pleasant
journey, with many a stop, and many a feast in the lakes and rivers
along the route. I should like to know, just out of curiosity, how many
fish found their way down her capacious gullet during that pilgrimage
through Illinois and Kentucky and Tennessee.

Well, no matter about that. The Mississippi pond was in sight, and she
was just slanting down toward the water, when a hunter fired at her from
behind a clump of trees. His aim was all too true, and she fell headlong
to the ground, with a broken wing dangling helplessly at her side.

Now, as you probably know, a loon isn't built for running. There is an
old story, one which certainly has the appearance of truth, to the
effect that when Nature manufactured the first of these birds she forgot
to give him any legs at all, and that he had started off on the wing
before she noticed her mistake. Then she picked up the first pair that
came to hand and threw them after him. Unfortunately they were a misfit,
and, what was, perhaps, still worse, they struck his body in the wrong
place. They were so very short and so very far aft that, although he
could stand nearly as straight as a man, it was almost impossible for
him to move about on them. When he had to travel on la