As nothing happened, I went off to watch another nest, but in an hour was back to make sure of seeing the small wrens when they left the nest. A loud continuous scolding met me on approaching, and one of the old wrens, with bill full of insects, flew—not up to the nest—but down in among the weeds! In less than an hour that whole brood of wrens had flown, and were three or four rods away in the high weeds—safe! I was taken aback. They had stolen a march on me. Surely I had not been treated as was fit and proper, being one of the family!
It was amusing to see the young ones fly. They whirled away on their wings as if they had been flitting around in the big world always; but their stubby tails sadly interfered with their progress, and they came to earth before they meant.
Weak cries came from the young hidden in the weeds. They could fly, but it was different from being safe inside a tree trunk! I hardly recognized their weak appealing voices, after the stentorian tones that had issued from the old nest.
The weeds were a most admirable cover, and the dead stalks sticking up through them served as sentry posts, from which the old birds scolded me when I followed too close on their heels. The youngsters sometimes appeared on the stalks, and looked very pert on their long legs with their short tails cocked over their backs.
In the afternoon I went again to see the little family to which I had become so much attached and which were now slipping away from me. They had been led farther up the canyon, where, at a turn in the dry bed of the stream, the thick cover of weeds was still more protected by brush and overhanging trees, and the whole thicket was warmed by the afternoon sunshine. The old birds were busily flying back and forth feeding their invisible young. They scolded me as they flew past, but kept right on with their work.
There was little use trying to keep track of the brood after that, and I thought I had given them up quite philosophically, reflecting that it was pleasant to leave them in such a sunny protected place. Still, day after day in riding along the line of sycamores on my way to other nests, it gave me a pang of loneliness to pass the old deserted wren tree where I had spent so many happy hours; and though the sycamores were silent, I could always hear and see the little lover singing to his pretty mate.
III.
LIKE A THIEF IN THE NIGHT.