Cloud Wings the Eagle. 103 



But even as I looked and wondered, and tried to 

 make out what other game had been furnished the 

 young savages I had helped to feed, a strange thing 

 happened, which touched me as few things ever have 

 among the wild creatures. The eagles had followed 

 me close along the last edge of rock, hoping no doubt 

 in their wild hearts that I would slip, and end their 

 troubles, and give my body as food to the young. 

 Now, as I sat on the ledge, peering eagerly into the 

 nest, the great mother-bird left me and hovered over 

 her eaglets, as if to shield them with her wings from 

 even the sight of my eyes. But Old Whitehead still 

 circled over me. Lower he came, and lower, till with 

 a supreme effort of daring he folded his wings and 

 dropped to the ledge beside me, within ten feet, and 

 turned and looked into my eyes. " See," he seemed 

 to say, " we are within reach again. You touched me 

 once ; I don't know how or why. Here I am now, to 

 touch or to kill, as you will; only spare the little 

 ones." 



A moment later the mother-bird dropped to the 

 edge of the nest. And there we sat, we three, with 

 the wonder upon us all, the young eagles at our feet, 

 the cliff above, and, three hundred feet below, the 

 spruce tops of the wilderness reaching out and away 

 to the mountains bevond the big lake. 



