Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/69

 made no effort to increase the velocity of his flight. His long wings still smote the air with that deliberateness and evenness of stroke which gave a sinister impression of confident mastery of the situation and seemed somehow to hint of hidden powers still held in reserve.

The red-throated loon was fleeing for his life. Terror gripped him, and in the clutch of that terror he was exerting every atom of his strength. But Cloud King, the peregrine, even in the wild fury of the chase, was cool, skillful, clear-headed, a master craftsman; and the craft, the business of the peregrine, is the pursuit of swift, strong-winged birds, some of them—like the teal, for instance—among the swiftest of all the birds that fly. Instinctively Cloud King knew the strategy of the problem before him, the age-old problem of his kind. He made no mistake, was betrayed into no false step. The sudden burst of speed which seemed to forecast the fugitive's escape was no surprise to the pursuer. On the contrary, the latter expected it; for always at the moment of discovery, this spurt came.

The question—the only important question—was, how long would the spurt last? And until he had some indication of the answer Cloud King was far too expert at this game of life and death—a game which his forbears had played for countless