something far worse--a
man. She waited till he was within a few yards, and then she jumped up,
scuttled down to the water as fast as she could go, and dived as if she
was made of lead. The trapper glanced after her with a chuckle.

"Seems pretty badly scared," he said to himself, but his voice was not
unkindly. His smile faded as he stood a moment beside the nest, looking
at the eggs, and thinking of what would some day come forth from them.
He was a solitary old fellow, with never a wife nor a child, nor a
relation of any kind. His life in the woods was just what he had chosen
for himself, and he would not have exchanged it for anything else in the
world; but sometimes the loneliness of it came over him, and he wished
that he had somebody to talk to. And now, looking at those eggs, and
thinking of the fledglings that were coming to the loons, he wondered
how it would seem if he had some children of his own. Pretty soon he
glanced out on the lake again, and saw Mahng's wife sitting quietly on
the water, just out of range.

"Hope she won't stay away till they get cold," he thought, and went on
his way across the swamp. The loon watched him till he passed out of
sight, and then she swam in to the beach and pushed herself up her
narrow runway to her old place. The eggs were still warm.

Half an hour later the trapper stepped out of the bushes beside the
pond, and caught sight of Mahng's head sticking out of the water. He
was considerably astonished, but he promptly laid hold of the chain and
drew bird, trap, and all up onto the bank, and then he sat down on a log
and laughed till the echoes went flying back and forth across the pond.
Plastered with mud, dripping wet, and with his left leg fast in the big
steel killing-machine, Mahng was certainly a comical sight. All the
fight was soaked out of him, and he lay prone upon the ground and waited
for the trapper to do what he pleased. But the trapper did nothing--only
sat on his log, and presently forgot to laugh. He was thinking of the
sitting loon whom he had disturbed a little while before. This was
probably her mate, and again there came over him a vague feeling that
life had been very good to these birds, and had given them something
which he, the man, had missed. He was growing old. A few more seasons
and there would be one trapper less in the Great Tahquamenon Swamp; and
he would die without--well, what was the use of talking or thinking
about it? But the loons would