Then Hukweem would slide lower with each circle, whirling round and round the lake in a great spiral, yelling all the time, and all the loons answering.  When low enough, he would set his wings and plunge like a catapult at the very midst of the assembly, which scattered wildly, yelling like schoolboys—­“Look out! he’ll break his neck; he’ll hit you; he’ll break your back if he hits you.”—­So they splashed away in a desperate fright, each one looking back over his shoulder to see Hukweem come down, which he would do at a terrific pace, striking the water with a mighty splash, and shooting half across the lake in a smother of white, before he could get his legs under him and turn around.  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.  That meant that something unusual was going on, so I left the trout, to find out about it.

When I pushed my canoe through the fringe of water-grass on the point nearest the loons, they were scattered in a long line, twelve or fifteen of them, extending from the head of the bay to a point nearly opposite me.  At the other end of the line two loons were swimming about, doing something which I could not make out.  Suddenly the loon talk ceased.  There may have been a signal given, which I did not hear.  Anyway, the two loons faced about at the same moment and came tearing down the line, using wings and feet to help in the race.  The upper loons swung in behind them as they passed, so as to watch the finish better; but not a sound was heard till they passed my end of the line in a close, hard race, one scarcely a yard ahead of the other, when such a yelling began as I never heard before.  All the loons gathered about the two swimmers; there was much cackling and crying, which grew gradually quieter; then they began to string out in another long line, and two more racers took their places at one end of it.  By that time it was almost dark, and I broke up the race trying to get nearer in my canoe so as to watch things better.  Twice since then I have heard from summer campers of their having seen loons racing across a lake.  I have no doubt it is a frequent pastime with the birds when the summer cares for the young are ended, and autumn days are mellow, and fish are plenty, and there are long hours just for fun together, before Hukweem moves southward for the hard solitary winter life on the seacoast.