“And two other parties go up?”
“Yes.”
“Any further notions about the game laws?”
“Nothing—except it’s the merest charity to assume they made them when they were drunk.”
“Sure thing! I guess I’ll have a cook when your camping stuff comes.”
My stuff was due in not many days; and as I walked home from Scipio’s cabin I felt gratitude to the game laws for the part they had played in delaying me in this valley where each day seemed the essence distilled from the beauty of seven usual days. Even as I waded Buffalo Horn I stopped to look up and down the course that it made between its bordering cottonwoods. A week ago these had been green; but autumn had come one night and now here was Buffalo Horn unwinding its golden miles between the castle walls of the mountains. Amid all this august serenity I walked the slower through fear of having it marred by the voice of May. I lingered outside the house and it was the voice of the Duchess that I heard. Yes, I was grateful to the game laws. They, too, caused me to learn the whole truth about Sir Francis.
On this particular evening I saw where had been my error regarding the Countess and Duchess. I have spoken of the Countess’ milder nature, which I thought always put her behind the Duchess in their struggle for precedence. It did not. Quite often she made up in skill what she lacked in force and I now saw the first example of it. They were all coming to the pond for their evening swim, the two ducks scolding and walking with their necks at right angles. Sir Francis was in the lead, his head gently inclined toward the water. As he got in the Duchess made an evident miscalculation. She thought he was going to swim to the right, and she splashed hastily in that direction. But he swam to the left. The Countess was there in a flash. She got herself next to him and held her place round and round the pond, crooking her neck and quacking backward at the enraged, defeated Duchess.
Twice in the following forenoon I saw this recur; and before supper I knew that it was a part of their daily lives. Sometimes it happened on land, sometimes in the water, and always in the same way—a miscalculation as to which way the drake was going to turn. It was the duck who had been nearest to him that always made the miscalculation, and she invariably lost her place by it. Then she would rage in the rear while the other scoffed back at her. Neither of them could have been entirely a lady or they would have known how to conduct their quarrel without all this displeasing publicity. But there can be no doubt that Sir Francis was a perfect gentleman. Not only was he never aware of what was happening, but he so bore himself as wholly to avoid being made ridiculous. That the Duchess was a little near-sighted I learned when I took to feeding them with toast brought from breakfast.
My time was growing short and I began to fear that I might be gone hunting before I had penetrated the mystery of the historical portrait attitude near the woodpile and the protests of the ducks in the water. This was going on straight along, only I had never managed to see the beginning of it. Therefore I fed them on toast to draw closer to them, and I tried to give each a piece, turn about; but only too often, when toast meant for the Duchess had fallen in the water directly under her nose, she would peer helplessly about and the Countess would dip down quickly and get it. Sometimes the Duchess saw it one second too late, when their heads would literally collide, and the Duchess, under the impression she had got it, would snap her bill two or three times on nothing, and then perceive the Countess chewing the morsel. At this she always savagely bit the Countess; and still, through it all, the drake sustained his admirable ignorance. My feeding device triumphed. I did learn about the woodpile.
This is what I saw. They had been swimming for a while after eating the toast. Sir Francis had finally swallowed a last hard bit of crust after repeatedly soaking it in the water. He looked about and evidently decided it was time for the haystack. He got out on the bank, but the ladies did not. He turned and looked at them; they continued swimming. Then he walked slowly away in silence, and as he grew distant their swimming became agitated. Reaching the woodpile, he turned and stood in bland, eminent profile. Then the ducks in the pond began. The Duchess quacked; the Countess quacked; their voices rose and became positively wild. A person who did not know would have hastened to see if they needed assistance. This performance lasted four minutes by my watch—the drake statuesque by the woodpile, the ducks screaming in the water. Then, as I have before described, they succumbed to the power at the woodpile. They swam ashore, flapped to dry themselves, and made for Sir Francis like people catching a train. He did not move until they had reached him, when all sought the haystack.