When we landed for lunch he swam the broad
stream and hung about at a distance. As this was twenty miles from
any settlement, he was doubtless hungry, so I left a bountiful
lunch for him, and when we moved away, he claimed his own.
At Fort McKay I saw a little half-breed boy shooting with a bow
and displaying extraordinary marksmanship. At sixty feet he could
hit the bottom of a tomato tin nearly every time; and even more
surprising was the fact that he held the arrow with what is known
as the Mediterranean hold. When, months later, I again stopped at
this place, I saw another boy doing the very same. Some residents
assured me that this was the style of all the Chipewyans as well
as the Crees.
That night we camped far down the river and on the side opposite
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
at last had elapsed before I turned in again and left him. More
than once that night I awoke to hear his "tinging" serenade upon
the consecrated air of the piney woods.
Yet Preble said this one was an indifferent performer.
