THE FEATHER MAN 241 



I did not want to run the risk of making an error 

 which might make me the laughing-stock of the 

 camp. So, in the half-light, I made a rough pencil 

 sketch of the shape of the top of that dead tree as 

 I saw it that night. 



''Next morning, I looked at the tree. Clearly 

 to be seen was a long splinter sticking up on one 

 side of it which had not been visible the night 

 before. The evidence was clear. The old Owl 

 had been perched on the tree the night before, so 

 immovable, and looking so exactly like a part of 

 the dead trunk that, even with my powerful 

 glasses, I could not distinguish his form. 



"Late that next afternoon I watched carefully, 

 but suddenly, he was there. I was regarding in- 

 tently, yet I never saw the flying figure. All of a 

 sudden, the upstanding sliver disappeared and I 

 knew that the changed outline of the top of the 

 dead tree, silhouetted against the evening sky, was 

 the immovable figure of the Great Horned Owl. 



' ' ' Come on out, ' I said to the lumbermen ; ' come 

 and see the ghost laid!' 



''They trooped out of the chuck -house. 



"I had fastened a fur cap to a long piece of 

 string, leaving the cap in the shadow^ of the bushes, 

 and running the string to the camp. Now I com- 



