the Fort, for experience soon teaches one to give the dogs no
chance of entering camp on marauding expeditions while you rest.
About ten, as I was going to sleep, Preble put his head in and
said: "Come out here if you want a new sensation."

In a moment I was standing with him under the tall spruce trees,
looking over the river to the dark forest, a quarter mile away,
and listening intently to a new and wonderful sound. Like the
slow tolling of a soft but high-pitched bell, it came. Ting, ting,
ting, ting, and on, rising and falling with the breeze, but still
keeping on about two "tings" to the second; and on, dulling as
with distance, but rising again and again.

It was unlike anything I had ever heard, but Preble knew it of old.
"That", says he, "is the love-song of the Richardson Owl. She is
sitting demurely in some spruce top while he sails around, singing
on the wing, and when the sound seems distant, he is on the far
side of the tree."

Ting, ting, ting, ting, it went on and on, this soft belling
of his love, this amorous music of our northern bell-bird. .

Ting, TING, ting, ting, ting, TING, ting, ting, ting, ting, TING,
ting--oh, how could any lady owl resist such strains?--and on, with
its ting, ting, ting, TING, ting, ting, ting, TING, the whole night
air was vibrant. Then, as though by plan, a different note--the
deep booming "Oho-oh-who-oh who hoo" of the Great Homed Owl--was
heard singing a most appropriate bass.

But the little Owl went on and on; 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes