of swift-flying mallards winged their way here and there, passing from one ricefield canal to another. Innumerable companies of blackbirds wheeled and maneuvered in the air. Now and again, a flock of doves passed well out of range, their long, pointed wings driving them at high speed. The graceful white herons which abounded on the ricefields in summer had vanished with the advent of cool weather; but in their place had come other birds less beautiful perhaps, but not less interesting—long-tailed marsh harriers quartering the grassy plains; big redtailed hawks, wide-winged and stately; a pair of white-headed eagles soaring grandly in the upper air.
Chad was watching one of the circling redtails when, at a much lower height, three swift-flying birds shot across the field of his vision. He recognized them at once as wood ducks which had come out of the woods to his right; and, following their course, he saw them swing around in a half circle, and then slant down to a spot in the ricefield not far from the woods' edge and perhaps a quarter of a mile ahead. Chad knew that spot well. A pool lay there, just at the head of a small canal—a placid, tiny pond which seemed always to be teeming with life. The wood ducks, he knew, were dabbling about the shallow reed-grown margins of this pond; and he thought with regret of the law which
