fist into his palm, "I've stood all I'm going to stand! If Red Cam kills him I'll kill Cam."
Some five hours later, Sanute the wood ibis, standing in the water at the mouth of a small marsh gully, decided that one more mullet would be enough. His gullet was already crammed full, but he rejoiced in an exceedingly hearty appetite and he could accommodate another fish if it were not too large. The ibis army, breaking up into detachments, had scattered widely over the marshes, and then, dividing into still smaller squads, the ibises had set about getting breakfast. But Sanute fished alone, as always. He wanted no clumsy, bumptious, more or less inexpert youngster near him when he waded into the shallows of some sinuous marsh brook and grappled with the important business of satisfying that imperious appetite.
Tide had passed the half-ebb. The water was swirling out of the steep-sided, flat-bottomed gully in which he stood, his shoulders humped, his long neck extended, his big solemn-looking head cocked knowingly on one side. From time to time during the morning he had danced awkwardly about in the shallows, scratching the soft bottom of the gully to stir up the mud; then thrusting his bill into the cloudy water, he had held it there for a while, the scythe-like, sharp-edged mandibles partly open. The
