IV

Billy had never liked the Corner-box Blue (2600 C); notwithstanding the

fact that he still continued in the ranks of the Silver Badge, Billy

believed he was poor stuff. The steamer incident seemed to prove him

coward; he certainly was a bully.

One morning when Billy went in there was a row, two Pigeons, a large

and a small, alternately clinching and sparring all over the floor,

feathers flying, dust and commotion everywhere. As soon as they were

separated Billy found that the little one was Arnaux and the big one

was the Corner-box Blue. Arnaux had made a good fight, but was

overmatched, for the Big Blue was half as heavy again.

Soon it was very clear what they had fought over--a pretty little lady

Pigeon of the bluest Homing blood. The Big Blue cock had kept up a

state of bad feeling by his bullying, but it was the Little Lady that

had made them close in mortal combat. Billy had no authority to wring

the Big Blue's neck, but he interfered as far as he could in behalf of

his favorite Arnaux.

Pigeon marriages are arranged somewhat like those of mankind.

Propinquity is the first thing: force the pair together for a time and

let nature take its course. So Billy locked Arnaux and the Little Lady

up together in a separate apartment for two weeks, and to make doubly

sure he locked Big Blue up with an Available Lady in another apartment

for two weeks.

Things turned out just as was expected. The Little Lady surrendered to

Arnaux and the Available Lady to the Big Blue. Two nests were begun and

everything shaped for a "lived happily ever after." But the Big Blue

was very big and handsome. He could blow out his crop and strut in the

sun and make rainbows all round his neck in a way that might turn the

heart of the staidest Homerine.

Arnaux, though sturdily built, was small and except for his brilliant

eyes, not especially good-looking. Moreover, he was often away on

important business, and the Big Blue had nothing to do but stay around

the loft and display his unlettered wings.

It is the custom of moralists to point to the lower animals, and

especially to the Pigeon, for examples of love and constancy, and

properly so, but, alas there are exceptions. Vice is not by any means

limited to the human race.

Arnaux's wife had been deeply impressed with the Big Blue, at the

outset, and at length while her spouse was absent the dreadful thing

took place.

Arnaux returned from Boston one day to find that the Big Blue, while he

retained his own Available Lady in the corner-box, had also annexed the

box and wife that belonged to himself, and a desperate battle followed.

The only spectators were the two wives, but they maintained an

indifferent aloofness. Arnaux fought with his famous wings, but they

were none the better weapons because they now bore twenty records. His

beak and feet were small, as became his blood, and his stout little

heart could not make up for his lack of weight. The battle went against

him. His wife sat unconcernedly in the nest, as though it were not her

affair, and Arnaux might have been killed but for the timely arrival of

Billy. He was angry enough to wring the Blue bird's neck, but the bully

escaped from the loft in time. Billy took tender care of Arnaux for a

few days. At the end of a week he was well again, and in ten days he

was once more on the road. Meanwhile he had evidently forgiven his

faithless wife, for, without any apparent feeling, he took up his

nesting as before. That month he made two new records. He brought a

message ten miles in eight minutes, and he came from Boston in four

hours. Every moment of the way he had been impelled by the

master-passion of home-love. But it was a poor home-coming if his wife

figured at all in his thoughts, for he found her again flirting with

the Big Blue cock. Tired as he was, the duel was renewed, and again

would have been to a finish but for Billy's interference. He separated

the fighters, then shut the Blue cock up in a coop, determined to get

rid of him in some way. Meanwhile the "Any Age Sweepstakes" handicap

from Chicago to New York was on, a race of nine hundred miles. Arnaux

had been entered six months before. His forfeit-money was up, and

notwithstanding his domestic complications, his friends felt that he

must not fail to appear.

The birds were sent by train to Chicago, to be liberated at intervals

there according to their handicap, and last of the start was Arnaux.

They lost no time, and outside of Chicago several of these prime Flyers

joined by common impulse into a racing flock that went through air on

the same invisible track. A Homer may make a straight line when

following his general sense of direction, but when following a familiar

back track he sticks to the well-remembered landmarks. Most of the

birds had been trained by way of Columbus and Buffalo. Arnaux knew the

Columbus route, but also he knew that by Detroit, and after leaving

Lake Michigan, he took the straight line for Detroit. Thus he caught up

on his handicap and had the advantage of many miles. Detroit, Buffalo,

Rochester, with their familiar towers and chimneys, faded behind him,

and Syracuse was near at hand. It was now late afternoon; six hundred

miles in twelve hours he had flown and was undoubtedly leading the

race; but the usual thirst of the Flyer had attacked him. Skimming over

the city roofs, he saw a loft of Pigeons, and descending from his high

course in two or three great circles, he followed the ingoing Birds to

the loft and drank greedily at the water-trough, as he had often done

before, and as every pigeon-lover hospitably expects the messengers to

do. The owner of the loft was there and noted the strange Bird. He

stepped quietly to where he could inspect him. One of his own Pigeons

made momentary opposition to the stranger, and Arnaux, sparring

sidewise with an open wing in Pigeon style, displayed the long array of

printed records. The man was a fancier. His interest was aroused; he

pulled the string that shut the flying door, and in a few minutes

Arnaux was his prisoner.

The robber spread the much-inscribed wings, read record after record,

and glancing at the silver badge--it should have been gold--he read his

name--Arnaux; then exclaimed: "Arnaux! Arnaux! Oh, I've heard of you,

you little beauty, and it's glad I am to trap you." He snipped the

message from his tail, unrolled it, and read: "Arnaux left Chicago this

morning at 4 A.M., scratched in the Any Age Sweepstakes for New York."

"Six hundred miles in twelve hours! By the powers, that's a

record-breaker." And the pigeon-stealer gently, almost reverently, put

the fluttering Bird safely into a padded cage. "Well," he added, "I

know it's no use trying to make you stay, but I can breed from you and

have some of your strain."

So Arnaux was shut up in a large and comfortable loft with several

other prisoners. The man, though a thief, was a lover of Homers; he

gave his captive everything that could insure his comfort and safety.

For three months he left him in that loft. At first Arnaux did nothing

all day but walk up and down the wire screen, looking high and low for

means of escape; but in the fourth month he seemed to have abandoned

the attempt, and the watchful jailer began the second part of his

scheme. He introduced a coy young lady Pigeon. But it did not seem to

answer; Arnaux was not even civil to her. After a time the jailer

removed the female, and Arnaux was left in solitary confinement for a

month. Now a different female was brought in, but with no better luck;

and thus it went on--for a year different charmers were introduced.

Arnaux either violently repelled them or was scornfully indifferent,

and at times the old longing to get away, came back with twofold power,

so that he darted up and down the wire front or dashed with all his

force against it.

When the storied feathers of his wings began their annual moult, his

jailer saved them as precious things, and as each new feather came he

reproduced on it the record of its owner's fame.

Two years went slowly by, and the jailer had put Arnaux in a new loft

and brought in another lady Pigeon. By chance she closely resembled the

faithless one at home. Arnaux actually heeded the newcomer. Once the

jailer thought he saw his famous prisoner paying some slight attention

to the charmer, and, yes, he surely saw her preparing a nest. Then

assuming that they had reached a full understanding, the jailer, for

the first time, opened the outlet, and Arnaux was free. Did he hang

around in doubt? Did he hesitate? No, not for one moment. As soon as

the drop of the door left open the way, he shot through, he spread

those wonderful blazoned wings, and, with no second thought for the

latest Circe, sprang from the hated prison loft--away and away.

V

We have no means of looking into the Pigeon's mind; we may go wrong in

conjuring up for it deep thoughts of love and welcome home; but we are

safe in this, we cannot too strongly paint, we cannot too highly praise

and glorify that wonderful God-implanted, mankind-fostered home-love

that glows unquenchably in this noble bird. Call it what you like, a

mere instinct deliberately constructed by man for his selfish ends,

explain it away if you will, dissect it, misname it, and it still is

there, in overwhelming, imperishable master-power, as long as the brave

little heart and wings can beat.

Home, home, sweet home! Never had mankind a stronger love of home than

Arnaux. The trials and sorrows of the old pigeon-loft were forgotten in

that all-dominating force of his nature. Not years of prison bars, not

later loves, nor fear of death, could down its power; and Arnaux, had

the gift of song been his, must surely have sung as sings a hero in his

highest joy, when sprang he from the 'lighting board, up-circling free,

soaring, drawn by the only impulse that those glorious wings would

honor,--up, up, in widening, heightening circles of ashy blue in the

blue, flashing those many-lettered wings of white, till they seemed

like jets of fire--up and on, driven by that home-love, faithful to his

only home and to his faithless mate; closing his eyes, they say;

closing his ears, they tell; shutting his mind,--we all believe,--to

nearer things, to two years of his life, to one half of his prime, but

soaring in the blue, retiring, as a saint might do, into his inner

self, giving himself up to that inmost guide. He was the captain of the

ship, but the pilot, the chart and compass, all, were that

deep-implanted instinct. One thousand feet above the trees the

inscrutable whisper came, and Arnaux in arrowy swiftness now was

pointing for the south-southeast. The little flashes of white fire on

each side were lost in the low sky, and the reverent robber of Syracuse

saw Arnaux nevermore.

The fast express was steaming down the valley. It was far ahead, but

Arnaux overtook and passed it, as the flying wild Duck passes the

swimming Muskrat. High in the valleys he went, low over the hills of

Chenango, where the pines were combing the breezes.

Out from his oak-tree eyrie a Hawk came wheeling and sailing, silent,

for he had marked the Flyer, and meant him for his prey. Arnaux turned

neither right nor left, nor raised nor lowered his flight, nor lost a

wing-beat. The Hawk was in waiting in the gap ahead, and Arnaux passed

him, even as a Deer in his prime may pass by a Bear in his pathway.

Home! home! was the only burning thought, the blinding impulse.

Beat, beat, beat, those flashing pinions went with speed unslacked on

the now familiar road. In an hour the Catskills were at hand. In two

hours he was passing over them. Old friendly places, swiftly coming

now, lent more force to his wings. Home! home! was the silent song that

his heart was singing. Like the traveller dying of thirst, that sees

the palm-trees far ahead, his brilliant eyes took in the distant smoke

of Manhattan.

Out from the crest of the Catskills there launched a Falcon. Swiftest

of the race of rapine, proud of his strength, proud of his wings, he

rejoiced in a worthy prey. Many and many a Pigeon had been borne to his

nest, and riding the wind he came, swooping, reserving his strength,

awaiting the proper time. Oh, how well he knew the very moment! Down,

down like a flashing javelin; no wild Duck, no Hawk could elude him,

for this was a Falcon. Turn back now, O Homer, and save yourself; go

round the dangerous hills. Did he turn? Not a whit! for this was

Arnaux. Home! home! home! was his only thought. To meet the danger, he

merely added to his speed; and the Peregrine stooped; stooped at

what?--a flashing of color, a twinkling of whiteness--and went back

empty. While Arnaux cleft the air of the valley as a stone from a

sling, to be lost--a white-winged bird--a spot with flashing halo--and,

quickly, a speck in the offing. On down the dear valley of Hudson, the

well-known highway; for two years he had not seen it! Now he dropped

low as the noon breeze came north and ruffled the river below him.

Home! home! home! and the towers of a city are coming in view! Home!

home! past the great spider-bridge of Poughkeepsie, skimming, skirting

the river-banks. Low now by the bank as the wind arose. Low, alas! too

low!

What fiend was it tempted a gunner in June to lurk on that hill by the

margin? what devil directed his gaze to the twinkling of white that

came from the blue to the northward? Oh, Arnaux, Arnaux, skimming low,

forget not the gunner of old! Too low, too low you are clearing that

hill. Too low--too late! Flash--bang! and the death-hail has reached

him; reached, maimed, but not downed him. Out of the flashing pinions

broken feathers printed with records went fluttering earthward. The

"naught" of his sea record was gone. Not two hundred and ten, but

twenty-one miles it now read. Oh, shameful pillage! A dark stain

appeared on his bosom, but Arnaux kept on. Home, home, homeward bound.

The danger was past in an instant. Home, homeward he steered straight

as before, but the wonderful speed was diminished; not a mile a minute

now; and the wind made undue sounds in his tattered pinions. The stain

in his breast told of broken force; but on, straight on, he flew. Home,

home was in sight, and the pain in his breast was forgotten. The tall

towers of the city were in clear view of his far-seeing eye as he

skimmed by the high cliffs of Jersey. On, on--the pinion might flag,

the eye might darken, but the home-love was stronger and stronger.

Under the tall Palisades, to be screened from the wind, he passed, over

the sparkling water, over the trees, under the Peregrines' eyrie, under

the pirates' castle where the great grim Peregrines sat; peering like

black-masked highwaymen they marked the on-coming Pigeon. Arnaux knew

them of old. Many a message was lying undelivered in that nest, many a

record-bearing plume had fluttered away from its fastness. But Arnaux

had faced them before, and now he came as before--on, onward, swift,

but not as he had been; the deadly gun had sapped his force, had

lowered his speed. On, on; and the Peregrines, biding their time, went

forth like two bow-bolts; strong and lightning-swift they went against

one weak and wearied.

Why tell of the race that followed? Why paint the despair of a brave

little heart in sight of the home he had craved in vain? in a minute

all was over. The Peregrines screeched in their triumph. Screeching and

sailing, they swung to their eyrie, and the prey in their claws was the

body, the last of the bright little Arnaux. There on the rocks the

beaks and claws of the bandits were red with the life of the hero. Torn

asunder were those matchless wings, and their records were scattered

unnoticed. In sun and in storm they lay till the killers themselves

were killed and their stronghold rifled. And none knew the fate of the

peerless Bird till deep in the dust and rubbish of that pirate-nest the

avenger found, among others of its kind, a silver ring, the sacred

badge of the High Homer, and read upon it the pregnant inscription:

"ARNAUX, 2590 C."