Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/72

 he also was too busy at that moment to concern himself with the business of his neighbor of Devilhead peak. The cottontail, nibbling her way along the brook margin, had nibbled in leisurely fashion and—had kept the old fox waiting a long while for his breakfast. Now, however, the rabbit had approached within a few yards of the bowlder. In another minute or two Red Rogue's chance would come.

Of the three who were playing the grim game of hunter and hunted in Rocky Meadow, only the cottontail had even a moment's warning of the strange thing that occurred. At the falcon's scream she crouched low in the weeds beside the brook, her frightened eyes searching the sky. She saw a dark body hurtling downward and she crouched still lower, expecting each moment to feel the hawk's talons in her flank. But neither Red Rogue nor Dan Alexander saw that falling body. Neither of these two knew that it was falling until it struck the ground between the hunter and the fox, not more than ten feet behind the fox's back.

Red Rogue never knew what it was that fell from the sky. He did not stop to investigate its nature. Startled half out of his wits by a swish of wind and a sudden heavy thud directly behind him and close by, he leaped over the bowlder in front and raced twenty yards at top speed before he looked back.