Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/218

 But wood mice and crayfish were of no interest to Storm-Rider; and he was not looking for pumas either and entertained no expectation of finding one at that spot beside Crystal Run. No more than Koe-Ishto did the golden eagle understand why this particular spot was often visited by wild turkeys, and no more than Koe-Ishto was he interested in the why and wherefore of it. But just as well as the puma knew it, the eagle knew that turkeys came here often; and for the eagle of Younaguska, as well as for the great cat of Unaka Kanoos, the place had often proved a profitable hunting ground.

Unaka Kanoos reared its rocky summit near at hand. The loftier dome of Younaguska, the sacred mountain, was many miles distant. But to Storm-Rider the leagues of air were nothing. His kingdom was broad; his hunting ground stretched as far as his tireless wings could bear him in a day. For fifty miles on every side of his home on Younaguska he ruled the airy spaces above the Overhills, as the Cherokees called the high mountains; and at any spot in that vast domain he might appear at any moment to claim his booty. He circled now on motionless wings high above the shoals of Crystal Run because he, too, had become suddenly aware that morning of a craving for turkey-meat.

For some five minutes the fierce frowning eyes of the soaring eagle had been searching with peculiar