Page:Condor20(1).djvu/37

 36 THE CONDOR Vol. XX times fairly flopped down on the water in her eagerness to draw my fire. Be- sides the ducks flushed from the slough, many others rose from the wet pasture beyond. While following the fence, in the narrow water lane between it and the high grass I had come upon two nests, presumably those of Coots--compact, neat looking rafts of slough grass and large stalks, one brown and the other green, as fresh and green with its grassy lining, as if just plucked. Each nest contained nine 'small pointed and decidedly dingy eggs, lightly specked. When I had turned from the fence and was heading out through the shoulder-high grass toward the dry pasture long rods away, suddenly the green wall before me gave way and in a bowl-like circle of open water I looked down. with de- light upon a third nest--a brown island, high on the water, high enough it seemed to keep dry in all peradventures. Only eight eggs were here, but bits of shell pointed to the ninth, and on the water close by I discovered the recent occupant of the shell. Doubtless frightened by my approach, it had plun. ged over the edge of the nest; but the sudden change from its warm egg-shell to the cold water was too much for it, and it let me pick it up, examine it and return it to its brother eggs--droll little baby Coot, with its red sealing wax bill, dark bluish frontal shield, red skull cap, and yellow and black hairs. Near by I came to another nest, just begun, a few green stalks lying on the water; so al- together there was quite a Coot colony. After this day in the Big Slough, the Black Streak was on my mind for two weeks longer, when I determined to reach its edge at least. By this time, from wading in other sloughs and in the tule marsh along shore, I had tired of my futile rubber boots. /lot and clumsy to walk in when dry, all too heavy when full of water, impossible to withdraw from if stuck in a bog, and difficult to dry out even with the help of a prairie wind and a stove, they were certainly ill-suited to the submerged tenth of North Dakota with which I was struggling. So old shoes, or rubbers tied on over stockings had come to be my substitutes. Leaving the farmhouse by a pathway through the wheat tracked up by the pretty Flicker-tails, I waded out first. over the hummocky ground with its short tussocks, then straight out through the dense stand of brown-topped slough grass to the very edge of the Black Streak, although in the rainy inter- val the grass had grown from shoulder high to over the top of my hat, and the water had deepened from knee to waist high. When I reached the open water of that magic Black Streak, I saw my mis- take. It was deserted, except for taunting voices and vague forms half hidden among the rules scattered over its surface. I had marched up boldly, demand- ing the keys of the castle, wlien Nature denies her fortresses to all importun- ares. Mystery and magic doubtless invested that secret domain, but--prosaic facts-.-! was looking west when the sun blinded my eyes, my approach had frightened away the birds, and the water was too cold for those threatened with the infirmities of age to stand in pending their tardy return! But let us be thankful for Life's gracious compensations! Wading around slowly and aimlessly just enjoying myself, .with the slough grass over the top of my hat, I came to a better understanding of one of the most interest- ing types of prairie cover. Fortunate indeed, to have come this year, for the Big Slough now standing waist high in water, in ordinary seasons is mowed to the fence bordering the Black Streak. When out in the midst of the hat-high grass where you could not see over its bro;vn surface, it carried the eye to the