Lanky had proved a good listener. He had done his best to appear credulous. He had interrupted seldom, and when he had, he had always followed his cue, and had propounded only the questions that the narrators wanted him to ask. It is not surprising, therefore, that on this night the older men were loaded for him. It was Red Wallace that discharged the first missile. “We ’as speakin’ of milamo birds last night,” he observed. “I seen sign today, lots of sign.” “That’s funny; I done that very same thing,” said Hank. “I seen, I reckon, a hundred holes where they’d been feedin’.” “Do you suppose we’re likely to see any of them?” asked Lanky. “Not likely,” said Joe, “not likely. They’re mighty scerce these days, mighty scerce, and mighty shy, mighty shy. I ain’t seen one in years. You might keep your eye peeled though; we might happen on one any time. We might. You never can tell.” “Yeah, we might,” broke in Hank. “Still we’re more likely to hear one than to see one. They’ve got a way of knowin’ when somebody’s about, though he’s a mile off. Yeah, they’re mighty hard to see, ’specially these days; mighty hard to see.” “What sort of a bird is the milamo?” asked Lanky. “What is he like?” “Oh,” replied Hank, “he’s like a milamo. They ain’t nothin’ else jest like him.” “Is he large or small?” asked Lanky. “He’s rather large,” said Hank, “though not as big as an ostrich I reckon, though somewhat bigger than a crane, which he somewhat resembles in general makeup and conformation. “In the fall when the rains comes and fills up the lakes, like they are now, the critters comes in, or used to, and feeds around the edges of the water. They’ve got long legs like stilts for wadin’ in the water, a long neck, and a long beak that they uses to bore into the soft ground for the earthworms, which is their principal food and diet. “I ain’t talkin’ about the little puny earthworms like school boys use to fish with. Naw, sir, a milamo bird would be ashamed of his self if he et one of them kind. He digs down into the ground and ketches the big fellers, shore-nuff he-man worms that looks like inner-tubes. I’ve seen holes you could hide a hoss’s leg in where them critters ’ad been escavatin’ for grub. More than one good cow hoss has had to be shot from steppin’ in holes that these birds has made, not to say nothin’ of the good cow-hands that has had their necks broke. “But as I was sayin’ about the milamo bird, he jest has a way of knowin’ where the big worms lives, and when he comes to a place where he knows one of them big fellers is all curled up takin’ a nap down under the ground, he sticks his bill into the soil and begins to bore and bore, walkin’ around and around. Purty soon his bill goes out of sight, then his head, then his neck, clean up to his shoulders. That’s the way you can slip up on one of ’em. If you can ketch him in jest that stage, maybe you can git sight of him.