Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/56

 security of a precipice virtually inaccessible to man. They shared, too, the distinction of bachelorhood—a real distinction in their case, because it indicated that they had been victors in the stern battle for life, and, eluding death in many forms, had won through to old age, when love and mating no longer interested them.

Even as Red Rogue was mateless, so, too, was Cloud King. If a mate had come to him he might have taken her. But the peregrine, boldest and most destructive of the falcons, had been the hated enemy of mankind for generations and its numbers had been thinned. Never abundant in the high inland region around Devilhead, where there were no large rivers or extensive lakes to attract ducks, the peregrine's favorite prey, this swiftest and handsomest of all the hawk kind had all but vanished from the mountain country.

For this Cloud King cared nothing. He was as contented in his loneliness as was Red Rogue, the fox; and the absence of other buccaneers of his race meant simply a larger food supply for himself. Only occasionally did the golden eagles, which nested farther to the westward, invade his hunting ground. In general he enjoyed a virtual monopoly—so far as other preying birds were concerned—of the ruffed grouse, the choicest game which the mountain country afforded, while quail and doves