“Boys, I’ve an idea. It’s clearly too far over here for us to come for what the camp could use of the game for one day, or even two. But if we could make a lot of coops and take back a load of live pigeons, we could feed them and use them as they would be needed.”
“Yes, that’s all right,” replied Rob, “but catching ’em alive is another thing.”
“Well, wait until I explain,” replied Ed. “Did you notice how the birds came flying in so closely packed together that they had no chance to get out of our way? Well, I’ve been thinking of the four big, close-woven hammocks mother has at home. If we would fasten them together and stretch them up among the trees, I believe the birds would fly against them and get tangled up in the meshes, and we could take a lot of them alive.”
“Good scheme! Good scheme!” shouted the other boys. “We’ll do that very thing.”
It was ten days later, however, before the boys were able to secure the team with which to make the trip, and then they found brooding mothers already hovering over the stick nests, each of which contained two white eggs.
The boys were disappointed, but that the birds might be disturbed while rearing their young was not to be thought of. “Well,” said Rob, “it means waiting until next spring.” But the next spring the pigeons did not return, and to this day the scientists are discussing what became of the “passenger pigeon.”
CHAPTER XII
THE MOUNDBUILDERS
“Father,” said Ed one evening, as he came in from a short hunting trip, “were there ever any armies encamped here, or battles fought in this part of the country?”