The pond narrows toward the head, and just before it becomes a creek again the channel turns abruptly through the docks in against the right shore, where the current curls and dimples darkly under the drooping branches of great red maple; then it horseshoes into the middle, coming down through small bush-islands and tangled brush which deepen into an extensive swamp.

June seemed a little tardy here, but the elder, the rose, and the panicled cornel were almost ready, the button-bushes were showing ivory, while the arrow-wood, fully open, was glistening snowily everywhere, its tiny flower crowns falling and floating in patches down-stream, its over-sweet breath hanging heavy in the morning mist.  My nose was in the air all the way for magnolias and water-lilies, yet never a whiff from either shore, so particular, so unaccountably notional are some of the high-caste flowers with regard to their homes.

The skiff edged slowly past the first of the islands, a mere hummock about a yard square, and was turning a sharp bend farther up, when I thought I had a glimpse of yellowish wings, a mere guess of a bird shadow, dropping among the dense maple saplings and elder of the islet.

Had I seen or simply imagined something?  If I had seen wings, then they were not those of the thrasher,—­the first bird that came to mind,—­for they slipped, sank, dropped through the bushes, with just a hint of dodging in their movement, not exactly as a thrasher would have moved.

Drifting noiselessly back, I searched the tangle and must have been looking directly at the bird several seconds before cutting it out from the stalks and branches.  It was a least bittern, a female.  She was clinging to a perpendicular stem of elder, hand over hand, wren fashion, her long neck thrust straight into the air, absolutely stiff and statuesque.

We were less than a skiff’s length apart, each trying to outpose and outstare the other.  I won.  Human eyes are none the strongest, neither is human patience, yet I have rarely seen a creature that could outwait a man.  The only steady, straightforward eye in the Jungle was Mowgli’s—­because it was the only one with a steady mind behind it.  As soon as the bird let herself look me squarely in the eye, she knew she was discovered, that her little trick of turning into a stub was seen through; and immediately, ruffling her feathers, she lowered her head, poked out her neck at me, and swaying from side to side like a caged bear, tried to scare me, glaring and softly growling.

Off she flopped as I landed.  The nest might be upon the ground or lodged among the bushes; but the only ground space large enough was covered layer over layer with pearly clam-shells, the kitchen-midden of some muskrat; and the bushes were empty.  I went to the other islets, searched bog and tangle, and finally pulled away disappointed, giving the least bittern credit for considerable mother-wit and woodcraft.  How little wit she really had appeared on my return down-creek that afternoon.