Page:Wisdom of the Wilderness (1923).pdf/129

 ence, the mink was in no way daunted. Rather he was so boiling with rage that his wonted wariness forsook him completely. With a snarl he sprang straight at the long, exposed, inviting throat of his adversary. His leap was swift, true, deadly. But equally true, and more swift, was the counterstroke. He was met, and stopped in mid-air by a thrust of the bittern's bill, which, had he not twisted his head just in time, would have split his skull. As it was, it laid open one side of his snarling face, and brought him heavily to the ground. Even under this punishment, however, he would not acknowledge defeat. Springing aside, with a lightning, zigzag movement to confuse the aim of that terrific bill, he darted low and made a leap at his antagonist's long, vulnerable legs. He missed only by a hair's breadth, as the bittern leapt nimbly aside and balked him with a stiff wing stroke. He seized the baffling wing and strove to pull his tall adversary down. But two great pinion feathers came away in his jaws, and the next moment he got another terrible, driving stab from the dagger beak, well forward on the flank. It was a slanting thrust, or it would have pierced his lungs; but it nearly knocked the wind out of him, and ploughed a deep, red gash in his glossy coat.