imself free.
There was no such thing, of course, as relaxing the strong jaws of the
trap, or wrenching his foot free; but he did succeed in pulling the trap
up from its bed under the water-grass and dragging it out upon the shore
to the full limit of the light chain which held it. Having accomplished
this much, he was quiet for some minutes, while his fierce eyes
scrutinized with fear and wonder the incomprehensible creature which had
fastened upon him. After three or four frantic efforts to stab it with
his redoubtable beak, he was quick to realize that this was an
invulnerable foe. He seemed to realize, also, that it was an inanimate
foe; for after due consideration he set himself to pulling it and
feeling it with the tip of his beak, seeking some way of getting rid of
it. At last, finding all this temperate effort useless, he blazed out
into a frantic rage. He would jump, and tug, and flop, and spring into
the air, and almost wrench the captive toes from their sockets. But all
he accomplished was to make his leg ache intolerably, clear up to the
thigh. At length he desisted and stood trembling, so exhausted that he
could hardly keep his feet.

[Illustration: "HE WAS IN THE IRON CLUTCH OF A MUSKRAT TRAP."]

Meanwhile, it chanced that two boys in a birch-bark canoe were paddling
up the river. The extraordinary antics of the blue heron caught their
eyes. They had never heard that this most stately of birds was subject
to fits; and they were filled with wonder. Paddling ashore with all
speed, they momently expected the great bird to recover himself at their
approach and flop heavily away, as herons are wont to do when one seeks
to observe them too closely. When near enough, however, to see what the
trouble was, they were much elated, as they had long wanted to capture a
blue heron and observe his habits in captivity.

As the boys ran their canoe ashore the bird was just yielding to
exhaustion. His dauntless spirit, however, was by no means broken by his
misfortune. At sight of the intruders his fierce eyes hardened, and his
head drew back warily between his shoulders. "Look out! Don't go near
that beak!" shouted the elder boy, as the younger sprang forward to
secure the coveted prize.

The warning came barely in time. That long neck had flashed forward to
its full length,--and just fallen short of the enemy's stockinged leg.

"Gee whizz!" exclaimed the lad, with a nervous laugh. "If that had
struck, I guess it would