Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/292

 prompting to launch himself forward and downward.

The fox, though she watched the eagle closely, seldom remained long in her grassy bed near his perch. Except when sleeping, she was generally moving about in her search for food, and she was able to carry on this search somewhat more actively because her hind legs, though very far from normal, were no longer totally useless to her. Her increased mobility offset to a certain extent the inroads which she had made upon the food resources of the hummock. Food was scarcer, but she could seek it more effectively; and though seldom free from the pinch of hunger, she found enough sustenance to keep going. She never forgot the eagle, but her war against him was a waiting game in which she could do nothing but wait. Against the other prisoner of Half-Acre she could proceed more vigorously.

Again and again she tried to capture the wing-broken blue heron. She knew the tall bird's habits well; knew that each morning well after daylight he came down from his safe perch in the cassena, strode across the hummock and disappeared in the marshes, and that each afternoon well before dark he returned. Three times she tried to ambush him, lying concealed in the grass or weeds near the hummock's edge; but each time the heron chose another route. One afternoon she hid herself near the foot