THE SCAVENGERS 



They stretch out their necks along the 

 ground, and roll up their slow eyes at longer 

 intervals. The buzzards have all the time, 

 and no beak is dropped or talon struck un- 

 til the breath is wholly passed. It is doubt- 

 less the economy of nature to have the 

 scavengers by to clean up the carrion, but 

 a wolf at the throat would be a shorter 

 agony than the long stalking and sometime 

 perchings of these loathsome watchers. 

 Suppose now it were a man in this long- 

 drawn, hungrily spied upon distress ! 

 When Timmie O'Shea was lost on Armo- 

 gossa Flats for three days without water, 

 Long Tom Basset found him, not by any 

 trail, but by making straight away for the 

 points where he saw buzzards stooping. 

 He could hear the beat of their wings, 

 Tom said, and trod on their shadows, but 

 O'Shea was past recalling what he thought 

 50 



