Page:Gray Eagle (1927).pdf/195

 ten minutes this speck had been swinging there, describing wide circles and long ellipses; and for seven minutes of that ten it had looked down upon another bird of the same species soaring and circling at a lesser altitude. Then, of a sudden, the lower bird had plunged, rushing down through the hissing air straight for the green surface of Slanting Pasture, where, as usual, a flock of white sheep were grazing.

The male eagle knew that his mate had spotted her victim. Instantly he half closed his wings and slid swiftly down a steep incline, descending several hundred feet before he checked his fall with a sudden stiffening of widely extended pinions. With fierce, eager eyes he watched the familiar drama—a drama which these two tyrants of the air had reenacted again and again in this same spot during the past several weeks. Even at that great height his eyes could distinguish every detail of the scene spread beneath him. Before his mate fell upon it, he saw the lamb at which she was aiming and knew that its fate was sealed.

Suddenly his gaze shifted to an alder thicket near the middle of the pasture. A man had emerged from this thicket arid was darting around its rim. The soaring eagle's muscles tightened; his head swung lower as his dark eyes, fiercer than ever now, measured the distance between his mate, just rising