Page:Gray Eagle (1927).pdf/206

 rel leaped to the ground, to be joined there by three others which came running from as many directions. The eagle waited and watched. But the big white-nosed squirrels upon which he had set his heart kept to the trees; and the eagle, more adept at striking his prey on the ground, finally picked one of the smaller grays as his target and poised himself for the plunge.

In the nick of time fate intervened to save the furry busybody. A twig cracked behind a tangle of grapevine and smilax and the squirrels scampered in all directions, each making for the nearest tree. The eagle, his neck stretched downward, his wings half opened, saw a tall bronze bird step into view from behind the vine tangle and recognized it instantly—a wild turkey gobbler, taller and bigger than any that he had ever seen among his native mountains.

Without a sound he dropped from his perch, fell like a plummet half-way to the ground, then, half opening his wings, slid swiftly down a steep incline, his body slanting sideways, his claws open beneath him. Next moment the wild gobbler's big wings were beating the grass in the death agony.

The eagle, busily plucking the great bronze carcass, did not know that delicate pointed ears, alert to catch all woods sounds, had heard the convulsive threshing of those powerful wings. A hundred