Page:They who walk in the wilds, (IA theywhowalkinwil00robe).pdf/157

 each swift throb a wing-beat,—and in swift diminuendo died away again into the viewless distance, leaving a silence strangely poignant until, after a waiting that stretched the ear, the approach of another flock was heralded.

Steve Barron's heart went out to those highjourneying voices, and journeyed with them. But being a lover of all the wild kindreds and an ardent student of their ways, he knew that not always did those migrant flocks do their travelling by night. Each flock, he knew, was guided and ruled by the wise old gander who cleft the air at the apex of the V. Sometimes, to break the long, long voyage and to rest the weaker members of the flock, he would decree a halt of a day and a night, or longer if advisable, at some secluded water on the way. Steve Barron knew that occasionally a flock had been known to stoop to that chain of sedgy pools that lay behind the angles of the dyke, out in the naked solitude of the marshes. Being woodsman and hunter as well as farmer, he had the quaint inconsistency of many of the finest hunters, who love the creatures whom they love to kill. He was eager to shoot one of these beautiful and wary travellers.

On this particular evening, whilst the sunset was flaring red across the coppery gleam of the flats, earth, sky and the far-off sea looked all equally empty of life. Not even the lightest breeze