sight at the first preliminaries of adoption. In places the banks, where
they were not low and swampy, were perforated like honeycombs with holes
some three inches in diameter.

"Oh, what are they?" asked Agony in surprise. "All snake holes?"

"Bank swallows," replied Sahwah. "They make their nests in the mud along
river banks that way, until the banks are perfect honeycombs. I don't
see how each one knows his own nest; they all look alike to me."

"Maybe they're all numbered in bird language," remarked Miss Amesbury,
in her delightfully humorous way.

The scenery grew wilder and wilder as they glided forward and the talk
gradually became hushed into a half awed contemplation of the wilderness
which closed about them.

"I feel as if I were on some great exploring expedition," exclaimed
Sahwah. "Everything looks so new and undiscovered. I wish there was
something left to discover," she continued plaintively. "It's so
discouraging to think that there's nothing more for explorers to do in
this country. What fun it must have been for La Salle and Pere Marquette
and Lewis and Clark to find those big rivers that no white man had ever
seen before, and go poking about in the wilderness. That was the great
and only sport; everything else is tame and flat beside it. I'll never
get done envying those early explorers; how I wish I could have been
with them!"

"But Sahwah, girls didn't go on long exploring journeys," Gladys
interrupted quietly. "They couldn't have borne the hardships."