Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/272

 spotted-tailed surf bass from four to eight pounds in weight trailing by a cord from his left hand. Suddenly he halted. A quick glance behind had shown him a small black speck still far away over the ocean, a black speck which grew swiftly larger. Instantly he crouched close to the sand, then crawled hurriedly to a tuft of grass ten feet to his left. There he waited, his gun ready, his eyes fixed on the lone duck rushing straight toward him at the speed for which the bluebill is famous.

Other eyes marked that oncoming speck. The soaring eagle, though almost invisible from the ground, could see both duck and hunter with a distinctness which revealed nearly every detail; but for a time the eagle paid little attention to either, because he did not realize that far below there was about to be enacted a little drama from which he might profit. Not until smoke leaped from the muzzle of Jen's gun and the duck swerved sharply and seemed for a fraction of a second to stagger in the air did the eagle betray the slightest interest in what was taking place a thousand feet beneath him.

Then, however, he became in an instant a thing of amazing and almost terrible energy. His yellow eyes, under their frowning white brows, glared as though fire burned behind them; his powerful feet, armed with curved blue-black talons, opened and closed, opened again, then clenched more tightly