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 gone out of the big bird, that he either was dying or else was stunned. Eagerly the mountaineer watched as the gobbler shot downward, expecting each instant to see the triumphant peregrine disengage himself from his victim. Faster and faster fell the turkey, his wings half closed now, his neck still stretched to its utmost length; and for an instant Dan believed that he distinguished the form of the hawk clinging to the larger bird's back.

To the very last he looked to see Cloud King leap from the feathered steed he was riding. Not until gobbler and falcon had crashed together into the tree-tops a hundred yards or so down the slope did the woodsman realize that in this game of life and death which he had witnessed something had gone amiss. He marked the spot where the birds had fallen close to a gigantic tulip poplar overtopping the other trees on the mountainside. Then, snatching up his rifle, he hurried down the slope.

Within ten minutes he found them. The gobbler lay dead, his wings spread wide, his neck twisted under him. He had either been killed in the air by the impact of the falcon's hard muscular body or else he had killed himself when he crashed stunned and helpless into the branches of the trees.

Upon the bronze body of his victim stood Cloud King. The peregrine swayed weakly, turning his head from side to side and peering uncertainly about