“I am not ignorant of that fact; but I insist that Curtis shall be right himself, before he sets himself up for a teacher. A ‘whiteness,’ my dear fellow,” said Hopkins, blandly, “is a flock of swans. Just cast your eye about two points off the starboard bow, and you will see them.”
The boys looked in the direction indicated, and saw a large flock of birds about two or three miles away; and, what was very singular, they appeared to be floating in the air, a few feet above the surface of the water, and not in the water itself. The clear, pure atmosphere must have served as a magnifying glass, for they looked larger than the huge retriever which Egan had brought with him.
“How big would an ostrich look at that distance, and under the same conditions?” asked Bert, after they had all taken a survey of the flock through the binoculars.
“As big as an elephant,” answered Hopkins. “Now, the next thing is something else. How are we going to get a shot at them?”
“That’s the hardest part of it,” replied Egan. “They are the shyest birds in the world, and they can tell the difference between a rifle and a gun-shot as well as you can; at least that is what you will say after you have hunted them a few times. We can’t get within range of them with a boat—they are much too smart to allow that—so we will hide the cutter in a creek I know of, a little distance above here, and take to the marshes on foot. The one who is the best at creeping through cold water that is anywhere from six inches to two feet deep, is the one who will stand the best chance of getting a shot at them.”
It was while he was trying to find a hiding-place for his cutter that Egan, to his no small amazement, ran into and frightened away Barr’s ducks. We say he ran into them, and that is what any one living in that country would have said; but the words must not be taken literally. The mouth of the creek was in reality a bay, about two miles wide and half as deep, and the middle of this bay was black with ducks. With a great splashing of water and fluttering of wings they took flight the instant the Sallie showed her nose around the point, so that the boys did not really come within rifle-shot of them. Egan and his companions watched them as they winged their way toward the open water, and finally Don said:
“What a chance that would have been for Barr to-night, if he had known they were here!”
“Don’t you suppose he knew it?” inquired Egan. “Of course he did. He makes it his business to keep posted on such matters, and unless I am very much mistaken, we shall hear from him or his partner before we get a pop at those swans. What did I tell you?” he added, an hour later, as the cutter was running down the shore of the bay toward the creek. “There’s Pete, now.”
The others looked in the direction toward which Egan inclined his head, and saw a man pushing a canoe out of the marsh. He shook his paddle at them as they passed, and called out, in angry tones:
“Are you ever going to learn to mind your own business, Gus Egan? You are always around when you are not wanted.”