Then all the loons would gather round him,
cackling, shrieking, laughing, with such a din as the little loon
never heard in his life before; and he would go off in the midst of
them, telling them, no doubt, what a mighty thing it was to come down
from so high and not break his neck.
A little later in the fall I saw those same loons do an astonishing
thing. For several evenings they had been keeping up an unusual racket
in a quiet bay, out of sight of my camp. I asked Simmo what he thought
they were doing.--"O, I don' know, playin' game, I guess, jus' like
one boy. Hukweem do dat sometime, wen he not hungry," said Simmo,
going on with his bean-cooking. That excited my curiosity; but when I
reached the bay it was too dark to see what they were playing.
One evening, when I was fishing at the inlet, the racket was different
from any I had heard before. There would be an interval of perfect
silence, broken suddenly by wild yelling; then the ordinary loon talk
for a few minutes, and another silence, broken by a shriller outcry.
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