Page:Harold Titus--Timber.djvu/125

Rh the reasonable creature he had been and he had gone as far, perhaps farther, in his very impulses!

On the river bank near the house Helen sat with Bobby and Bessy Kildare. Pauguk, freed from her kennel, was chained to a stump, nose between her paws, orange eyes on the face of her mistress as Helen talked to the children.

John approached slowly. The wolf dog turned and muttered under her breath, throwing a venomous glance at him, but Helen was occupied with Bobby and did not notice.

"Look!" she cried suddenly, indicating a flitting bird. "What is it?"

The boy looked sharply.

"Fly-catcher," he said. "Olive-sided fly-catcher!" very positive in tone, but his eyes searched hers with query.

"Are you sure? Listen!"

The bird had lighted in a tree and his thin, plaintive see-a-wee floated out over the river.

Bobby laughed. "Nope! Wood peewee," he said and showed confusion for his cocksureness of the moment before.

"And what does the olive fly-catcher say?"

"This," puckering his small lips and whistling a hip-pee-wee. "Like the pipin' plover," he added and laughed in delight at her smiling nod of favor.

"There's another bird! See him, Bobby?"

"He's easy! He's a flicker. An' there's a whiskey jack! See him lookin' for scraps?"

He pointed excitedly to the jay near the kitchen door.

"I seen a pine finch today, too. I knowed him because he had yellow only on his wings an' tail."