Once, at a distance, Bruce caught a glimpse of a pair of peculiar, little, sawed-off, plump-breasted ducks that wagged their tails, as if in signals, in a still place above a dam. He made a wide circle, intending to wheel back to the creekside for a closer inspection of the singular flirtation of those bobbing, fan-like tails. He rather thought he could outwit these little people, at least. But when he turned back to the water's edge they were nowhere to be seen. If he had had more experience with the creatures of the wild he could have explained this mysterious disappearance. These little ducks--"ruddies" the sportsmen call them--have advantages other than an extra joint in their tails. One of them seems to be a total and unprincipled indifference to the available supply of oxygen. When they wish to go out of sight they simply duck beneath the water and stay apparently as long as they desire. Of course they have to come up some time--but usually it is just the tip of a bill--like the top of a river-bottom weed, thrust above the surface. Bruce gaped in amazement, but he chuckled again when he discovered his birds farther up the creek, just as far distant from him as ever. The sun rose higher, and he began to feel its power. But it was a kindly heat. The temperature was much higher than was commonly met in the summers of the city, but there was little moisture in the air to make it oppressive. The sweat came out on his bronze face, but he never felt better in his life. There was but one great need, and that was breakfast. A man of his physique feels hunger quickly. The sensation increased in intensity, and the suitcase grew correspondingly heavy. And all at once he stopped short in the road. The impulse along his nerves to his leg muscles was checked, like an electric current at the closing of a switch, and an instinct of unknown origin struggled for expression within him. In an instant he had it. He didn't know whence it came. It was nothing he had read or that any one had told him. It seemed to be rather the result of some experience in his own immediate life, an occurrence of so long ago that he had forgotten it. He suddenly knew where he could find his breakfast. There was no need of toiling farther on an empty stomach in this verdant season of the year. He set his suitcase down, and with the confidence of a man who hears the dinner call in his own home, he struck off into the thickets beside the creek bed. Instinct--and really, after all, instinct is nothing but memory--led his steps true. He glanced here and there, not even wondering at the singular fact that he did not know exactly what manner of food he was seeking. In a moment he came to a growth of thorn-covered bushes, a thicket that only the she-bear knew how to penetrate. But it was enough for Bruce just to stand at its edges. The bushes were bent down with a load of delicious berries.