Page:Gray Eagle (1927).pdf/37

 perhaps his mate dabbled with her little ones had beckoned him, the vision was instantly blotted out. Panic swept over him like a wave, gripped and stabbed him like death's claw. Yet even in his panic he did the one thing that might save him.

Directly beneath him lay a wide plain of river marsh; but not more than a quarter of a mile to his right a long loop of the wide, winding river glittered in the sun. This was his haven if he could reach it; and instantly he wheeled in the air and, tilting his body sharply forward, drove with all the strength of his pinions directly towards the river's smooth expanse. Beneath that silvery mirror-like surface life awaited him. Towards that goal he ran his race with death.

It was a brave race. Until its final tenth of a second, its issue was in doubt. The drake's swift maneuver, his sudden wheel to the right, gained him some twenty yards. For a moment he no longer heard that thin, keen, wailing note behind and above him. But almost instantly he heard it again, and swiftly it sharpened to a hiss which in turn became a loud, angry, rustling noise like the rushing of wind through bending tree-tops.

Fifteen feet above the surface of the river the race ended—ended with a savage downward thrust of widespread blue-black talons and a smother of great gray wings furiously lashing the air. The