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“No, silly–not the bird, but the museum.”

“Um–you can tell that to Donald; I know better than to believe.”

“Ah, but this is true,” said Anna, without anger at the aspersion on her habitual truthfulness. “I tell you it is true. You would not believe about the machine-boat that runs by steam, with the smoke coming from it like the spout of our kettle, till I showed you the picture of it in father’s book.”

“I have seen the lion and the unicorn fighting for the crown. There are lies in pictures as well as in books!” said Simeon, stating a great truth.

“But this bird is called the Great Auk–did you never hear your father tell about that?”

Simeon’s face still expressed no small doubt of Anna’s good faith. The words conveyed to him no more meaning than if she had said the Great Mogul.

Then Anna remembered.

“It is called in Scotland the Gare Fowl!”

Simeon was on fire in a moment. He stopped rowing and started up.

“I have heard of it,” he said. “I know all that there is to know. It was chased somewhere on the northern islands and shot at, and one of them was killed. But did it ever come here?”

“I have father’s book with me, and you shall see!” Being prepared for scepticism, Anna did not come empty-handed. She pulled a finely bound book out of a satchel-pocket that swung at her side. “See here,” she said; and then she read: “‘After their ill-usage at the islands of Orkney, the Gare Fowl were seen several times by fishermen in the neighbourhood of the Glistering Beaches on the lonely and uninhabited island of Suliscanna. It is supposed that a stray bird may occasionally visit that rock to this day.'”

Simeon’s eyes almost started from his head.

“Worth a hundred pounds!” he said over and over as if to himself.

Anna, who knew the ways of this most doubting of Thomases, pulled a piece of paper from her satchel and passed it to him to read. It related at some length the sale in a London auction-room of a stuffed Great Auk in imperfect condition for one hundred and fifty pounds.

“That would be pounds sterling!” said Simeon, who was thinking. He had a suspicion that there might be some quirk about pounds “Scots,” and was trying to explain things clearly to himself.

“Now, we are going to the Glistering Beaches to look for the Great Auk!” said Anna as a climax to the great announcement.

The water lappered pleasantly beneath the boat as Simeon deftly drew it over the sea. There is hardly any pleasure like good oarsmanship. In rowing, the human machine works more cleanly and completely than at any other work. Before the children rose two rocky islands, with an opening between, like a birthday cake that has been badly cut in the centre and has had the halves moved a little way apart. This was Stack Canna.

“Do you think that there would be any chance here?” said Anna. The splendour of the adventure was taking possession of her mind.

“Of course there would; but the best chance of all will be at the caves of Rona Wester, for that is near the Glistering Beaches, and the birds would be sure to go there if the people went to seek them at the Beaches.”

“Has any one been there?” asked Anna.

“Fishers have looked into them from the sea. No one has been in!” said Simeon briefly.

The tops of the Stack of Canna were curiously white, and Simeon watched the effect over his shoulder as he rowed.

“Look at the Stack,” he said, and the eyes of his companion followed his.

“Is it snow?” she asked.

“No; birds–thousands of them. They are nesting. Let us land and get a boat-load to take back.”

But Anna declared that it must not be so. They had come out to hunt the Great Auk, and no meaner bird would they pursue that day.

Nevertheless, they landed, and made spectacles of themselves by groping in the clay soil on the top of the Stack for Petrels’ eggs. But they could not dig far enough without spades to get many, and when they did get to the nest, it was hardly worth taking for the sake of the one white egg and the little splattering, oily inmate.