Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/153

 from the air and driven his long talons into its sides.

The king stood for a few minutes upon the body of his victim, waiting until its struggles became less violent; then, spreading his wings, he rose against the wind, lifting the bass almost without effort. He was forty feet above the marsh when he saw the marshman, now standing erect, his head projecting above the tall grass, his gun at his shoulder. With a harsh scream the eagle swerved and slid down the wind, his body slanting sharply, gaining speed each instant. The gun barrel swung swiftly around a half circle, held steady a fraction of a second, then spouted flame and smoke.

The king screamed again as a numbing shock paralyzed his left wing. His claws opened, releasing the bass, while he struggled frantically to right himself in the air and check his fall. Then, as two dark brown quill feathers whirled past him spiraling downward, the numbness of his wing passed as suddenly as it had come, and with swift powerful strokes of his pinions he swept onward and upward, again on an even keel and again in full possession of his powers.

Jen Murray, the marshman, gazed after him with gleaming eyes. His charge of duck shot had merely clipped two feathers from the eagle's wing; but, at any rate, a fine bass had been added to his catch,