CHAPTER VIII 



IS IT A LIFE OF FEAR? 



THERE was a swish of wings, a flash of gray, 

 a cry of pain ; a squawking, cowering, scat- 

 tering flock of hens ; a weakly fluttering pul- 

 let; and yonder, swinging upward into the sky, a 

 marsh hawk, buoyant and gleaming silvery in the 

 sun. Over the trees he beat, circled once, and disap- 

 peared. 



The hens were still flapping for safety in a 

 dozen directions, but the gray harrier had gone. A 

 bolt of lightning could hardly have dropped so unan- 

 nounced, could hardly have vanished so completely, 

 could scarcely have killed so quickly. I ran to the 

 pullet, but found her dead. The harrier's stroke, de- 

 livered with fearful velocity, had laid head and neck 

 open as with a keen knife. Yet a little slower and 

 he would have missed, for the pullet warded off the 

 other claw with her wing. The gripping talons 

 slipped off the long quills, and the hawk swept on 

 without his quarry. He dared not come back for it 

 at my feet ; so, with a single turn above the woods 

 he was gone. 



The scurrying hens stopped to look about them. 



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