Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/68

 ning of the chase, so swiftly were the two birds moving—the hawk had cut down the distance between himself and his quarry by more than half. Cloud King now knew that the big bird ahead of him and perhaps a hundred feet below him was not a duck of any of the species known to him; but he judged it to be of the duck kind, and although it was larger than the birds upon which he was accustomed to prey, he was more determined than ever to attack and kill it. He could not grapple so large a bird in the air. Instead, he planned to fall upon it from above and hurl it to the ground. The chase had fanned into fierce flame the fury which possessed him in moments of violent action, and his bold spirit counted no odds of size or weight.

The peregrine was instantly aware that his approach had been discovered. The loon's pinions whirred twice as rapidly as before; his long body leaped forward and shot onward at a speed which was a startling revelation of his powers. Cloud King's fierce eyes glowed with a sterner light; his great yellow feet, armed with long, black, needle-pointed talons, opened and closed convulsively. Suddenly he screamed—a wild, shrill cry which the fugitive might have interpreted as a cry of disappointment and baffled rage.

Yet, though he no longer gained, and perhaps even dropped a little behind, the falcon apparently