udly from the
extreme end of the inner lane, telling her husband, and every duck,
goose, and swan in the vicinity, what she thought of such an inhuman
separation.

Molly laughed, and so did Marche. Duck after duck, goose after goose,
joined indignantly in the conversation. The mallard drakes twisted their
emerald-green heads and began that low, half gurgling, half quacking
conversation in which their mottled brown and gray mates joined with
louder quacks. The geese conversed freely; but the long-necked swans
held their peace, occupied with the problem of picking to pieces the
snaps on their anklets.

"Now," said Molly breathlessly, as the last madly protesting bird had
been stooled, "let's get into the blind as soon as we can, Mr. Marche.
There may be ducks in Currituck still, and every minute counts now."

So Marche towed the dory around to the westward and drew it into a
channel where it might lie concealed under the reeds.

When he came across to the blind he found Molly there, seated on the
plank in the cemented pit behind the screen of reeds and rushes, laying
out for him his cartridges.

There they were, in neat rows on the rail, fives, sixes, and a few of
swanshot, ranged in front of him. And his 12-gauge, all ready, save for
the loading, lay across the pit to his right. So he dropped his booted
feet into the wooden tub where a foot-warmer lay, picked up the gun,
slid a pair of sixes into it, laid it beside him, and turned toward Miss
Herold.

The wool collar of her sweater was turned up about her delicately molded
throat and face. The wild-rose color ran riot in her cheeks, and her
eyes, sky tinted now, were wide open under the dark lashes, and the wind
stirred her hair till it rippled bronze and gold under the edge of her
shooting hood. She, too, was perfectly ready. A cheap, heavy, and rather
rusty gun lay beside her; a heap of cheap cartridges before her.

She turned, and, catching Marche's eyes, smiled adorably, with a slight
nod of comradeship. Then, the smile still faintly curving her lips, she
crossed her legs in the pit, and, warming her hands in the pockets of
her coat, leaned back, resting against the rail behind.

"You haven't a foot-warmer," he said.

"I'm not cold--only my fingers--a little--stooling those birds."

They spoke in low voices, under their breath.

He fished from his pocket a flat Japanese hand-warmer, lighted the
paper-cased punk, snapped it shut, and passed it to her. But