Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/33

 tain spot, unvisited for months, but rich with succulent memories.

A half hour later, Eyes o' Flame, the horned owl, motionless on the top of a tall dead cedar at the edge of the marshes, saw a gray hump-backed shape ambling like a tiny bear along an abandoned causeway leading across the marshy flats toward the ocean beach. To the great owl's eyes the night was more transparent than the day. At once he recognized his foe—the little tailless coon that had come to live in his woods, the thief that had raided his storehouse and stolen his milk. Yet Eyes o' Flame did not move. Bold as he was, he was prudent also, and it was not his habit to trifle rashly with raccoons unless there was some compelling reason for doing so or unless conditions gave him an advantage. Some night perhaps he would catch Lotor again high in the air on the slender trunk of a tree, where he could not meet the big owl's lightninglike onset. Then there would be a reckoning. Eyes o' Flame bided his time.

So Lotor the Lucky passed on along the causeway toward the sea, unaware of the grim, hostile orbs that watched him go; and presently he came without mishap or adventure to the back beach of the small barrier isle to which the causeway led. There he paused for a few moments to take stock of his surroundings.