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None of the others had any desire to go ashore, and so I, with the gun and Euphemia, took the boat and rowed to the island. While we were here the others determined to sail to the opposite side of the river to look for a little post-office, the existence of which the boatman had not mentioned until it had been determined to make this stoppage here.

As we approached the island we saw hundreds of pelicans, some flying about, some sitting on trunks and branches of dead trees, and some waddling about on the shore.

“You might as well shoot two of them,” said Euphemia, “and then we will select the better one to take to Rudder Grange.”

The island was very boggy and muddy, and, before I had found a good place to land, and had taken up the gun from the bow of the boat, every pelican in sight took wing and flew away. I stood up and fired both barrels at the retreating flock. They swerved and flew oceanward, but not one of them fell. I helped Euphemia on shore, and then, gun in hand, I made my way as well as I could to the other end of the island. There might be some deaf old fellows left who had not made up their minds to fly. The ground was very muddy, and drift-wood and under-brush obstructed my way. Still, I pressed on, and went nearly half around the island, finding, however, not a single pelican.

Soon I heard Euphemia’s voice, calling loud. She seemed to be about the centre of the island, and I ran toward her.

“I’ve got one!” I heard her cry, before I came in sight of her. She was sitting at the root of a crooked, dead tree. In front of her she held, one hand grasping each leg, what seemed to me to be an ungainly and wingless goose. All about her the ground was soft and boggy. Her clothes were muddy, her face was red, and the creature she held was struggling violently.

“What on earth have you got?” I exclaimed, approaching as near as I could, “and how did you get out there?”

“Don’t you come any closer!” she cried. “You’ll sink up to your waist! I got here by treading on the little hummocks and holding on to that dead branch; but don’t you take hold of it, for you’ll break it off, and then I can’t get back.”

“But what is that thing?” I repeated.

“It’s a young pelican,” she replied. “I found a lot of nests on the ground over there, and this was in one of them. I chased it all about, until it flopped out here and hid itself on the other side of this tree. Then I came out quietly and caught it. But how am I going to get it to you?”

This seemed, indeed, a problem. Euphemia declared that she needed both hands to work her way back by the means of the long, horizontal limb which had assisted her passage to the place where she sat, and she also needed both hands to hold her prize. It was likewise plain that I could not get to her. Indeed, I could not see how her light steps had taken her over the soft and marshy ground that lay between us. I suggested that she should throw the pelican to me. This she declined to do.

“I could never throw it so far,” she said, “and it would surely get away. I don’t want to lose this pelican, for I believe it is the last one on the island. If there are other young ones, they have scuttled off by this time, and I should dreadfully hate to go back to the yacht without any pelican at all.”

“I don’t call that much of one,” I said.

“It’s a real pelican for all that,” she replied, “and about as curious a bird as I ever saw. Its wings won’t stretch out seven feet, to be sure.”