Redrujf 73 



great, strong wings in helpless struggles to be 

 free. All day, all night, with growing torture, 

 until he only longed for death. But no one 

 came. The morning broke, the day wore on, 

 and still he hung there, slowly dying ; his very 

 strength a curse. The second night crawled 

 slowly down, and when, in the dawdling hours 

 of darkness, a great Horned Owl, drawn by 

 the feeble flutter of a dying wing, cut short 

 the pain, the deed was wholly kind. 



The wind blew down the valley from the 

 north. The snow -horses went racing over 

 the wrinkled ice, over the Don Flats, and over 

 the marsh toward the lake, white, for they were 

 driven snow, but on them, scattered dark, were 

 riding plumy fragments of partridge ruffs — the 

 famous rainbow ruffs. And they rode on the 

 wind that night, away, away to the south, over 

 the dark lake, as they rode in the gloom of his 

 Mad Moon flight, riding and riding on till they 

 were engulfed, the last trace of the last of the 

 Don Valley race. 



For no partridge is heard in Castle Frank 

 now — and in Mud Creek Ravine the old pine 

 drura-ios:, unused, has rotted in silence awav. 



