Though he swims with extraordinary rapidity under water--fast enough
to follow and catch a trout--a long deep dive tires him, and he must
rest before another. If you are chasing him, shout and wave your hat
the moment he appears, and paddle hard the way his bill points as he
dives again. The next time he comes up you are nearer to him. Send him
down again quick, and after him. The next time he is frightened to see
the canoe so close, and dives deep, which tires him the more. So his
disappearances become shorter and more confused; you follow him more
surely because you can see him plainly now as he goes down. Suddenly
he bursts out of water beside you, scattering the spray into your
canoe. Once he came up under my paddle, and I plucked a feather from
his back before he got away.

This last appearance always scares him out of his wits, and you get
what you have been working hard for--a sight of Hukweem getting under
way. Away he goes in a smother of spray, beating the water with his
wings, kicking hard to lift himself up; and so for a hundred yards,
leaving a wake like a stern-wheel steamer, till he gathers headway
enough to rise from the water.

After that first start there is no sign of awkwardness. His short
wings rise and fall with a rapidity that tries the eye to follow, like
the rush of a coot down wind to decoys. You can hear the swift, strong
beat of them, far over your head, when he is not calling. His flight
is very rapid, very even, and often at enormous altitudes. But when he
wants to come down he always gets frightened, thinking of his short
wings, and how high he is, and how fast he is going. On the ocean, in
winter, where he has all the room he wants, he sometimes comes down in
a great incline, miles long, and plunges through and over a dozen
waves, like a dolphin, before he can stop. But where the lake is