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 attacks of sentiment and imagination—felt that to shoot the defiant fighter would be like an act of treachery to an ally.

"Ye're a pretty fighter, Sonny," said he, with a whimsical grin, "an' ye may keep that yellow pelt o' yourn, for all o' me!"

Then he picked up the dead falcon, tied its claws together, slung it upon his axe, and strode through the trees. He wanted to keep those splendid wings as a present for his girl at the settlements.

Highly satisfied with his victory over the mighty falcon—for which he took the full credit to himself—Mustela now retired to the bottom of his comfortable, moss-lined nest, and curled himself up to sleep away the heat of the day. As the heat grew sultrier and drowsier through the still hours of early afternoon, there fell upon the forest a heavy silence, deepened rather than broken by the faint hum of the heat-loving flies. And the spicy scents of pine and spruce and tamarack steamed forth richly upon the moveless air.

When the shadows of the trunks began to lengthen, Mustela woke up. And he woke up hungry. Slipping out of his hole he ran a little way down the trunk and then leaped, lightly and nimbly as a squirrel, into the branches of a big hemlock which grew close to his own tree. Here,