Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/67

 time of his mating was far past. Perhaps for that reason the instinct which should have sent him on toward the Arctic was dulled and crippled. Vaguely discontented and somewhat lonely, twice he rose into the air to fly to the far-off boreal land where his fellows were nesting; and twice instinct failed him and he returned.

Thus he had stayed on, an accidental exile in a region where his kind were almost unknown; and as spring merged into summer his restlessness gradually passed, and, despite the unaccustomed warmth, he grew more and more contented with his placid little lake, ringed round with alders and shaded by tall hemlocks and gigantic tulip trees. He might have remained there months longer but for the fact that after a while the fish upon which he fed became inconveniently scarce. It was this exigency, the failure of his food supply, which finally compelled him to seek a new fishing ground; and it was grim chance which directed his flight southward across a high balsam-covered range, then westward up the long valley of the Chinquapin, toward Devilhead peak, where Cloud King, the peregrine, had his home.

A third of the distance to Devilhead had been covered when at last the red-throated loon became aware of his pursuer. By that time—and scarcely more than five minutes had elapsed since the begin-