But Ned was not altogether correct in his conclusions, though a fog did gather over the sea soon after Fleetwing turned his breast landward, and the bird did become nearly exhausted before he finally reached the shore. But reach it he did, after a brave struggle in the air, and then he did what exhausted homing-pigeons will sometimes do. He alighted at a strange pigeon-loft in one of the towns above New York city. The sight of other pigeons, homers like himself, and his own utterly wearied condition, made him very willing to stop for rest, despite his strongly rooted homing instinct. Then, as has been the case with many another of his race, the charms of new comradeship caused him to linger in the new quarters.
Two mornings later a man entered this loft and caught a half-dozen of the pigeons, Fleetwing among the number. The man evidently did not keep homing-pigeons for the love of it, since he did not know his birds by sight, but took those that came first to hand. He packed the pigeons carefully in a hamper, carried them out to the street, where a carriage was in waiting, and was driven to the railway station.
A few hours later, with the hamper of homing-pigeons still beside him, he went on board a great transatlantic steamship in New York and sailed for Europe.
Two weeks later, while Ned Sinclair was hunting for a tennis-ball in the bottom of the hall closet, he heard the pigeon bell ring loud and clear. He started suddenly.
"What's that?" He said to himself, excitedly. "There's no pigeon out of the 'flight'!"
He hurried out to the loft, tennis and all else but pigeons banished wholly from his mind.
In the loft, pecking in a quite-at-home way at a pan of split-pease and hemp seed was Fleetwing, the lost homer. Ned knew him instantly.
"Where under the sun—" he began, excitedly, but stopped on catching sight of the bird's wing and tail feathers. They certainly had something most unusual attached to them.
Ned caught the pigeon and investigated the mystery. The quills of two of the flight feathers of each wing, and of three of the tail feathers, had bits of thin oil-silk bound firmly about them, and these were tied with strong silk threads.
It took but a moment to cut the thread and to unroll the silk from one of the quills. Within were three small stones, that flashed and sparkled in the light. The other feathers had similar revelations to make.