[Illustration:  Hukweem]

This comes nearer to explaining the wild unearthliness of Hukweem’s call than anything else I know.  It makes things much simpler to understand, when you are camped deep in the wilderness, and the night falls, and out of the misty darkness under the farther shore comes a wild shivering call that makes one’s nerves tingle till he finds out about it—­Where are you?  O where are you? That is just like Hukweem.

Sometimes, however, he varies the cry, and asks very plainly:  “Who are you?  O who are you?” There was a loon on the Big Squattuk lake, where I camped one summer, which was full of inquisitiveness as a blue jay.  He lived alone at one end of the lake, while his mate, with her brood of two, lived at the other end, nine miles away.  Every morning and evening he came close to my camp—­very much nearer than is usual, for loons are wild and shy in the wilderness—­to cry out his challenge.  Once, late at night, I flashed a lantern at the end of the old log that served as a landing for the canoes, where I had heard strange ripples; and there was Hukweem, examining everything with the greatest curiosity.

Every unusual thing in our doings made him inquisitive to know all about it.  Once, when I started down the lake with a fair wind, and a small spruce set up in the bow of my canoe for a sail, he followed me four or five miles, calling all the way.  And when I came back to camp at twilight with a big bear in the canoe, his shaggy head showing over the bow, and his legs up over the middle thwart, like a little old black man with his wrinkled feet on the table, Hukweem’s curiosity could stand it no longer.  He swam up within twenty yards, and circled the canoe half a dozen times, sitting up straight on his tail by a vigorous use of his wings, stretching his neck like an inquisitive duck, so as to look into the canoe and see what queer thing I had brought with me.

He had another curious habit which afforded him unending amusement.  There was a deep bay on the west shore of the lake, with hills rising abruptly on three sides.  The echo here was remarkable; a single shout brought a dozen distinct answers, and then a confusion of tongues as the echoes and re-echoes from many hills met and mingled.  I discovered the place in an interesting way.

One evening at twilight, as I was returning to camp from exploring the upper lake, I heard a wild crying of loons on the west side.  There seemed to be five or six of the great divers, all laughing and shrieking like so many lunatics.  Pushing over to investigate, I noticed for the first time the entrance to a great bay, and paddled up cautiously behind a point, so as to surprise the loons at their game.  For they play games, just as crows do.  But when I looked in, there was only one bird, Hukweem the Inquisitive.  I knew him instantly by his great size and beautiful markings.  He would give a single sharp call, and listen intently, with head up, swinging