"They are coming," said Daisy, shading her eyes. "Do you see the speck
on the meadows?"
"It may be a mud hen," said the professor.
"Miss Holroyd is right," I said. "A wagon and team and two men are
coming from the north. There is a dog beside the wagon--it's that
miserable yellow dog of Frisby's."
"Good gracious!" cried the professor, "you don't mean to tell me that
you see all that at such a distance?"
"Why not?" I said.
"I see nothing," he insisted.
"You will see that I'm right, presently," I laughed.
The professor removed his blue goggles and rubbed them, glancing
obliquely at me.
"Haven't you heard what extraordinary eyesight duck shooters have?"
said his daughter, looking back at her father. "Jack says that they can
tell exactly what kind of a duck is flying before most people could see
anything at all in the sky."
"It's true," I said; "it comes to anybody, I fancy, who has had
practice."
The professor regarded me with a new interest. There was inspiration in
his eyes. He turned toward the ocean. For a long time he stared at the
tossing waves on the beach, then he looked far out to where the horizon
met the sea.
"Are there any ducks out there?" he asked at last.
"Yes," said I, scanning the sea, "there are."
He produced a pair of binoculars from his coat-tail pocket, adjusted
them, and raised them to his eyes.
"H'm! What sort of ducks?"