Page:They who walk in the wilds, (IA theywhowalkinwil00robe).pdf/158

 stirred the brown mullein-tops about Steve Barron's hiding-place.

There being no immediate need of caution, Steve Barron stretched his legs, filled his pipe, and settled himself for a smoke. But soon, as the sun sank below the horizon, and the blaze of rose and orange faded down, the spacious solitude began to come to life. Far up in the paling zenith a solitary duck winged inland. A little lower two foraging night-hawks swooped, with a long musical, twanging note as of a smitten harpstring. A flock of tiny sandpipers flickered up the mud-flats, whirled, with a sudden flash of white breasts, as they approached the dyke, and settled into invisibility a couple of hundred yards away. Steve Barron reluctantly put away his pipe and drew closer into his screen.

Then five slim "yellow-legs," who had been feeding on the mud along the lip of the receding tide, came flying homeward. They flew low, rose at the dyke, and passed straight over Barron's head, but never noticed him because he lay so still. Had he moved so much as a finger their keen bright eyes would have detected him, and they would have whirled off in alarm. But they sailed down close to the surface of one of the pools, dropped their long legs which had been stretched out behind them, hung poised for a second on arched, motionless wings, and alighted where the