Page:Gray Eagle (1927).pdf/117

 shrimp were not yet as large or as abundant as they would be later in the season, but the water flowing through his mandibles brought a good many little transparent crustaceans into the trap and few of these ever got out.

Now, however, he wanted no more shrimp, but a nice mullet with which to complete his meal; and, besides, the conditions were no longer auspicious for shrimp-fishing. A four-foot shark, whose dorsal and tail fins moved slowly back and forth across the mouth of the gully where it opened into a large marsh invaded Sanute's fishing ground, and  shark had ever attacked him, the old ibis preferred to hold his head high so that he could keep an eye on this intruder.

Presently his opportunity came. The heavy curved bill, its mandibles closed, shot down into the water and instantly rose again. It was a lightning-like stroke, powerful enough to stagger a raccoon if it had landed between the eyes, and in a moment a six-inch mullet, insensible or perhaps already dead, swirled to the surface of the little eddy at the edge of which the ibis stood.

Striding forward, he seized the fish, turned it deftly in his bill and swallowed it headforemost. Wading ashore, he took three quick steps over the hard, sun-baked mud between the water and the marsh; then, his Jong neck curving downward, his