"Hark!" said Micah! "Got yer piece ready? Maybe you'll hev' a chance to bring sumthin' deown. I heerd an old squaw holler jest neow".
"I'm ready", said John. "But I didn't hear any sound. What was it like?"
"O! kinder a scoldin' seound. Cawcawee! cawcawee! Don't yer hear the critter reelin' of it off? Ha! 'tis dyin' away, though. We shall hear it agin, by and by".
"An old squaw", said John, as the excitement the prospect of a shot had raised in his mind subsided. "Do you have such game as that, in Miramichi? I've heard of witches flying on broomsticks through the air, but didn't know before that squaws are in the habit of skylarking about in that way".
"Well, ye'll know it by observation, before long", said Micah, with a slight twitch of one eye. "Them's ducks from Canada, a goin' south'ard, as they allers do in the fall o' the year. They keep up that ere scoldin' seound, day and night. Cawcawee! cawcawee! kind of an aggravatin' holler! But I like it, ruther. It allers 'minds me of a bustin' good feller that was deown here from Canada once".
"How remind you of him?" inquired John.
"Well, he cam' deown on bissiniss, but he ran afowl o' me, and we was eout in the woods together, consid'able. He used to set eoutside the camp, bright, starlight nights, and sing songs, and sech. He had a powerful, sweet v'ice, and it allers 'peared to me as ef every kind of a livin' thing hushed up and listened, when he sung o' nights. He could reel off most anything you can think on. There was one kind of a mournful ditty he sung, and once in a while he brung in a chorus,—cawcawee! cawcawee,—jest like what them ducks say, only, the way he made it seound, was soft and meller and doleful-like. I liked to hear him sing that, only he was so solemn arter it, and would set and fetch up great long sythes. And once I asked him what made him so sober and take on so, arter singin' it. He said, Micah, my good lad, when I war a young man, I had a little French wife, that could run like a hind and sing like a wild bird. Well, she died. The very last thing she sung, was, that 'ere song. When I see how he felt, I never asked him another question. He sot and sythed a spell and then got up, took a most oncommon swig of old Jamaky and turned into his blanket".
Just as Micah ended this account, John caught sight of a large bird at a distance directly ahead of them, and his attention became entirely absorbed. It took flight from a partly decayed tree on the northern bank, and commenced wheeling around, above the water. The canoe was rapidly nearing this promising game.
Micah said not a word, but observed, in an apparently careless mood, the movements of his young companion.