Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/61

 Had this smaller spot moved while Cloud King was circling above the meadow, his eyes would have focused upon it instantly and he would have recognized his neighbor of Devilhead peak. But Red Rogue, after catching a mouse or two,hadtwo, had [sic] discovered a cottontail feeding on certain juicy stems which grew along the tiny stream meandering across the meadow, and he had now completed his preparations for a cottontail breakfast. Making a wide detour, he had posted himself behind a rock toward which the rabbit was moving slowly, following the course of the brook. Close to this rock the old fox sat on his haunches as motionless as a stump, unaware of the hunter, down the wind from him and at his back, crawling nearer and nearer and skillfully utilizing the scattered rocks and bowlders of the meadow to screen his approach.

For perhaps five minutes the peregrine swung in wide circles high above Rocky Meadow, watching the hunter idly yet intently, never suspecting that in the green amphitheatre far beneath him the stage was being set for a tragedy. Then, the edge of his curiosity dulled, he resumed his spiral ascent. Up and up he climbed, passing through and above a thin mistlike layer of cloud which, for all its gauzy tenuousness, presently shut the earth from his view. Two hundred feet above this cloud blanket the big hawk careened suddenly in the air, like a schooner