Harper's Round Table, October 13, 1896

THE LOST HOMER.

BY WEBB DONNELL.

"Not back yet, Ned?" The tone hardly indicated that Mrs. Sinclair expected an affirmative answer. The disappointed look on Ned's face told its own woful tale.

"No, mother," said Ned, looking out of the window upon the valley sloping to the Hudson, a quarter of a mile away. "No, he isn't back yet, and I've given up all hope that he ever will come back."

Ned drummed dismally on the window-pane before he went on. "If Helen 'tossed' Fleetwing a hundred miles out at sea, the pigeon would have been here before dark that day, for the steamer sailed at noon."

"Yes, one would think so," assented Mrs. Sinclair.

"Now it's the third day," went on the boy at the window, disconsolately. "Helen either forgot to set the bird free until the steamer was too far out for him to be able to fly back, or Fleetwing has been shot by a pot-hunter. When can we hear from Helen, mother?"

"Well, the steamer is due at Queenstown next Friday," said Mrs. Sinclair, "Then it will be six or seven days before her letter can get back to us. I guess we will have to wait ten days longer, Neddie; but I'm just as sorry as I can be about Fleetwing, dear."

"Yes, mother," said Ned, brightening at the sympathy.

"And we'll hope for the best," went on Mrs. Sinclair. "You know, homing-pigeons have returned to their lofts after weeks of absence. We won't give up Fleetwing till we hear from Helen, anyway."

"I know that some homers are out a long time from the loft and then get back all right," said Ned, "but Fleetwing always attends strictly to business. You know, he came straight home from the World's Fair flight from Chicago, more than a thousand miles."

Ned Sinclair's hobby--most boys of fifteen have one or more--was homing-pigeons. He had become interested in the subject through a visit to a pigeon-loving uncle, who taught him the secrets of caring for pigeons, homing and training them to make longer and still longer flights to their loft from far-away points.

Ned's father had built for him a splendid loft in the chamber of the stable, with a wire-covered "flight" stretching out over the green grass at the side. Great pains had been taken in stocking the loft to get only the best "strains" of homers, and the result appeared in the speedy return of almost every bird that Ned had ever sent away to be liberated.

Very often a bird would be intrusted to a friend going upon a journey, with a request that it be liberated at a certain hour and place.

Mr. Sinclair, too, had almost always taken a bird or two with him when he went down to New York city on business, a hundred miles from home. It had frequently happened that in an hour after being liberated from the Grand Central Station the swift little homer would trip the alighting-board at his own loft window, far up the Hudson, and so ring the little electric bell that in the house announced a pigeon's arrival home.

Then, later on, Ned had joined a Homing-pigeon Club in a near-by city, and successively from the two-hundred, the three-hundred, and the five-hundred mile "stations" his homers had flown home, making excellent records for speed.

While the record made in the World's Fair flight was not at all noteworthy for speed, Ned's birds did make the long distance, and returned to their loft, though thoroughly tired out--something that could not be said of many Eastern lofts that sent birds to Chicago for that contest.

A few days before, Ned's sister Helen had started with a party of friends for a trip through Europe. Ned had proposed that she take one of his homers a hundred miles out to sea, then send a message back to them from the steamer. He had selected the most reliable pigeon in the loft, and had packed it carefully in a light basket. Then he had waited patiently on the day the steamer sailed from New York for the tinkle of the little bell that should tell of its return home.

Again and again he visited the loft, thinking the bell might have rung in his absence from the house, but always to return disappointed. It was not until Helen's hastily scribbled note from Queenstown arrived that any clew to the mystery was given.

"Tell Ned," the note ran, "how sorry I am that I could not follow out his directions about the pigeon. Beth was taken frightfully seasick before we were down the bay, and I was so anxiously attending to her for some hours that I entirely forgot about liberating Fleetwing and sending a message home. When I did have a chance to think about it the steward said we were two hundred and fifty miles out. Then I didn't know what to do. I couldn't carry a homing-pigeon all over Europe with me, and I hesitated about liberating it so far out for fear it might not reach land, especially as the weather was not very clear. I had to decide quickly, and so concluded the best thing to do was to set Fleetwing free, but not to hamper him at all with a message tied to his flight feathers. I 'tossed' the little fellow from the deck, and he went straight up into the air, circled a moment, and then flew away America-ward. I do hope he got home safely."

"That explains it," said Ned. "Probably a thick fog came up, and Fleetwing lost his way, and got exhausted before he could get to land. That's the end of that bird," he concluded, dismally.

But Ned was not altogether correct in his conclusions, though a fog did gather over the sea soon after Fleetwing turned his breast landward, and the bird did become nearly exhausted before he finally reached the shore. But reach it he did, after a brave struggle in the air, and then he did what exhausted homing-pigeons will sometimes do. He alighted at a strange pigeon-loft in one of the towns above New York city. The sight of other pigeons, homers like himself, and his own utterly wearied condition, made him very willing to stop for rest, despite his strongly rooted homing instinct. Then, as has been the case with many another of his race, the charms of new comradeship caused him to linger in the new quarters.

Two mornings later a man entered this loft and caught a half-dozen of the pigeons, Fleetwing among the number. The man evidently did not keep homing-pigeons for the love of it, since he did not know his birds by sight, but took those that came first to hand. He packed the pigeons carefully in a hamper, carried them out to the street, where a carriage was in waiting, and was driven to the railway station.

A few hours later, with the hamper of homing-pigeons still beside him, he went on board a great transatlantic steamship in New York and sailed for Europe.

Two weeks later, while Ned Sinclair was hunting for a tennis-ball in the bottom of the hall closet, he heard the pigeon bell ring loud and clear. He started suddenly.

"What's that?" He said to himself, excitedly. "There's no pigeon out of the 'flight'!"

He hurried out to the loft, tennis and all else but pigeons banished wholly from his mind.

In the loft, pecking in a quite-at-home way at a pan of split-pease and hemp seed was Fleetwing, the lost homer. Ned knew him instantly.

"Where under the sun--" he began, excitedly, but stopped on catching sight of the bird's wing and tail feathers. They certainly had something most unusual attached to them.

Ned caught the pigeon and investigated the mystery. The quills of two of the flight feathers of each wing, and of three of the tail feathers, had bits of thin oil-silk bound firmly about them, and these were tied with strong silk threads.

It took but a moment to cut the thread and to unroll the silk from one of the quills. Within were three small stones, that flashed and sparkled in the light. The other feathers had similar revelations to make.

Here was an incident quite new to the homing-pigeon fancy. As a rule, it may be said, homing-pigeons do not go flying about the country for weeks at a time, finally returning to their own lofts loaded with what even to the inexpert eye appeared marvellously like diamonds. The stones had not yet been cut as for setting, but their quality appeared even in their unfinished state.

It is small wonder that Ned was highly excited over the occurrence. His delight at the safe return of his favorite homer, that he had given up for lost, was quite over-balanced by his astonishment at the treasures he had brought back.

He hurried from the loft to find his father and mother to show them the stones. Very soon every member of the family was very nearly as excited over the matter as was Ned.

"If it were a strange homer I should think it might be a case of attempted smuggling," said Mr. Sinclair, remembering that the most persistent and ingenious attempts are being made constantly to get diamonds into the United States without payment of the high import duty, "but that Fleetwing should become engaged in any such disreputable work is perfectly inexplicable!" he continued, with a laugh.

"Are you sure it is Fleetwing, Ned?" asked Mrs. Sinclair.

"I'm certain sure of that, mother," said Ned, fingering the pieces of oil-silk. "I should know him anywhere; but to be perfectly certain about it, I examined his seamless leg-band, and it has his loft number and my initials."

As he spoke, smoothing out the pieces of silk in his fingers, Ned suddenly started, and held one piece up to the light. It had a line of writing across it that could be deciphered readily.

"Take at once to No. -- L---- Street," the line read.

Mr. Sinclair had already planned to go to New York city on business the following day. Ho took the stones and the bits of oil-silk with him.