e floated up through the
bushes, and a charge of heavy shot peppered the water all around him.
But if Mahng was curious he was also quick to take a hint. He had heard
the click of the gun-lock, and before the leaden hail could reach him he
was under water. His tail feathers suffered a little, but otherwise he
was uninjured, and he did not come to the surface again till he was far
away from that deceitful red handkerchief.

The summer was an entire failure, and after a while Mahng gave it up in
despair, and started south much earlier than usual. At the Straits of
Mackinac he had another narrow escape, for he came very near killing
himself by dashing head first against the lantern of a lighthouse, whose
brilliant beams, a thousand times brighter than the light which had
lured his first wife to her death, had first attracted and then dazzled
and dazed him. Fortunately he swerved a trifle at the last moment, and
though he brushed against an iron railing, lost his balance, and fell
into the water, there were no bones broken and no serious damage done.

The southland, as everybody knows, is the only proper place for a loon
courtship. There, I am pleased to say, Mahng found a new wife, and in
due time he brought her up to the Glimmerglass. That was only last
spring, and there is but one more incident for me to relate. This summer
has been a happy and prosperous one, but there was a time when it seemed
likely to end in disaster before it had fairly begun.

Just northeast of the Glimmerglass there lies a long, narrow, shallow
pond. I believe I mentioned it when I was telling you about the Beaver.
One afternoon Mahng had flown across to this pond, and as he was
swimming along close to the shore he put his foot into a beaver-trap,
and sprung it. Of course he did his best to get away, but the only
result of his struggling was to work the trap out into deeper and deeper
water until he was almost submerged. He made things almost boil with the
fierce beating of his wings, but it was no use; he might better have
saved his strength. He quieted down at last and lay very still, with
only his head and neck out of water, and there he waited two mortal
hours for something to happen.

Meanwhile his wife sat quietly on her eggs--there were three of them
this year--and drowsed away the warm spring afternoon. By and by she
heard a tramping as of heavy feet approaching, and glancing between the
tall grasses she saw, not a bear nor a deer, but