trumpeters.”
“Poacher?” repeated Candy, puzzled. “Mother cooks poached eggs. She calls herself a poacher, but she doesn’t shoot birds.”
Duke forgot his troubles and burst out laughing with Allen. Linda giggled, a silly little noise, but it sounded pleasant.
Candy decided she had said the right thing until she heard Duke explain, “A poacher, Candy, is a man who breaks the law by shooting birds on a wildlife refuge. Several years ago there were poachers on this very refuge. The manager told Dad that, when we came here. He said they had a hard time tracking them down, too.” Duke clenched his fists. “A wildlife refuge is a place where birds and animals are protected from hunters. That’s why our government has set aside land in different parts of our country. Just wait until I lay my hands on the poacher. He’ll be sorry that he ever put foot on this refuge.”
Allen could not figure out Duke’s reasoning. “You’re not positive that the two trumpeters are gone, so how can you be so sure that a poacher was here?”
Duke frowned. Allen had a point. “Well, I’m not exactly certain,” he admitted.
At that moment the bus stopped at the refuge headquarters and Duke began getting off with the rest of the children.
“Let me know if you find those trumpeters,” the driver called after him.
“I will, Mr. Brooks.” Duke started running to his home, a low stone house with spring flowers growing in front of it. Linda raced after her brother. On the way Duke stopped and yelled to Allen who was heading with Candy to their house in back of the headquarters. “Get your bike, and we’ll go to the pond right away.”
“Okay,” Allen answered.
A short while later when Duke and Linda were ready to leave, Allen was not in sight. So they pedalled their bicycles down the gravel road to his house. Duke knocked on the front door and shifted impatiently from one foot to the other, waiting for someone to answer.
Finally Allen appeared, scowling and muttering to himself. Candy came a second later with tears streaming down her face. “I want to go along,” she wailed, “but Allen won’t let me.”
“I told you it’s because you don’t have a bike,” he explained, his voice sounding cross. “Every time I ride you on my handlebars, you bob up and down like a kangaroo, and I can’t see where I’m going.”
Candy blinked hard and wiped her face on the sleeve of her sweater. “I promise to sit still, Allen. You’ll see. I’ll be as quiet as a mouse.” She tucked her hand in his and gazed up at him with pleading eyes.
Allen sighed and looked to Duke for support, but his friend was silent. “Well, all right,” he answered. “You will keep your promise, Candy?”
She nodded and ran to the garage for her brother’s bicycle. Then, all smiles, she wheeled it back to him, and they were off with Duke in the lead.
On the way Duke took over Allen’s passenger. Candy was delighted to ride on Duke’s handlebars. She did not budge, until he parked his bicycle near a boulder at the roadside. Then her short chubby legs hurried to keep up with him and the others.
“Wait for me,” she yelled.
Linda stopped and, after the little girl caught up with her, they raced on, hand in hand. A toad, who had just awakened from a long winter’s sleep, hopped to one side of the path.
Candy came to an abrupt halt. “I’m going to pick up the toad and keep it as a pet.”
“No, don’t,” answered Linda. “It might be a lady toad heading for the water to lay her eggs.” She pulled Candy’s arm, urging her to go on.
The two girls ran some more. They were all out of breath when they reached the boys at the edge of the pond. Two trumpeter swans moved silently on the water, their huge white wings folded against their backs. A bright red streak marked their black bills.
Duke glanced at the swans. Then he focused his binoculars on the rushes close by. He could see no sign of the other trumpeters there. Nor was there any indication that they were feeding in the grain field with some snow geese.
“I was right,” he said. “They’re gone.”
“Let me look,” urged Allen.
Duke handed him the glasses. Allen was not able to spot the missing swans, and neither were the girls after they had their turns with the binoculars. To make doubly sure, though, they all hurried to the rushes. Plop! A frog jumped into the open water as they approached, and a blackbird cried out noisily from some cattails. Anxiously, the children peered between the tall plants, but all they saw was a few tiny fish scooting about in the shallows.
Dejected, Duke went to sit on a log. The others followed, stringing themselves out one against the other. For several minutes nobody said anything. Then Duke, with his chin cupped in his hands, began speaking his thoughts aloud: “Gosh! I don’t understand why a poacher would shoot two beautiful rare birds. Trumpeter swans are the largest of our waterfowl and the heaviest flying birds in North America. That’s why it’s important to save the few that are left. Now two have been killed.” Duke groaned and said no more.
Allen looked at him in sympathy. He wanted to argue that no evidence had been found that the pair had been shot by a poacher, but he decided he would only make Duke more upset.
Linda was also silent, keeping her thoughts to herself, but not Candy. She wanted to go exploring. She slid off the log and was soon investigating a rock and some brush nearby. It was not long before she came running back to the others. “Look what I found!” She held out a light brown button in her dirty hand.
The boys and Linda examined the button carefully.
“Say, I’ll bet it belongs to the poacher,” said Duke. “You’ve got sharp eyes, Candy. You can ride on my handlebars any time.”
“And you can ride on mine, too,” added Allen.
Candy grinned from ear to ear. To be praised by the boys was very special. “There is something else alongside that rock,” she said, pointing to it. “Big footprints. Lots of them.”
This was all the boys and Linda needed to hear. They raced with Candy to the spot.
Duke’s eyes opened wide as he stared at the tracks. “I knew it! A poacher has been here. These are his footprints. Let’s look for a shell from his gun.”
Like bloodhounds, the children searched in bushes and along the banks of the pond for evidence. After a while the boys picked up some stones. Allen threw one in the water, but when the two remaining trumpeters bugled in alarm and started swimming away, he stuffed the others in his pockets. Duke did the same with his, but he was itching to throw just one. Maybe if the trumpeters went into the rushes, he would fling a stone and make it skip in the water.
At that moment Linda and Candy cried out in horror.
“Something is up!” Duke said to Allen.
The boys rushed over to where the girls were staring at two white feathers stained with blood.
“We found them in this willow thicket,” explained Linda tearfully. “A poacher must have shot the trumpeters.”
Duke looked at the bloodstained feathers and blinked hard to be sure he was seeing correctly. All along he had felt that a poacher had killed the birds, but at the same time he had hoped he might be wrong. Now, here was the evidence as plain as day, and since the poacher had killed two swans, would he not come back for the others? Duke’s thoughts were interrupted when Linda tapped him on the shoulder and said, “I know how you must feel, Duke. I loved those trumpeters, too.”
“So did I,” added Allen. “I can’t figure out why a person would shoot them on a wildlife refuge. Why, it’s the meanest thing he could do—kill two rare birds.” Allen kicked up some dirt with his foot.