230 WHERE ROLLS THE OREGON 



could not help ; and we had been too much con- 

 cerned for our own lives really to notice what 

 was happening. But here on the top, with the 

 climb beneath us, the sight of a young murre 

 going over the rim, clawing and clinging with 

 beak and nails and unfledged wings, down from 

 jutting point to shelf^ to ledge, down, down — 

 the sight of it made one dizzy and sick. 



We stopped, but the colony had bolted, leav- 

 ing scores of eggs and scores of downy young 

 squealing and running together for shelter, like 

 so many beetles under a lifted board. 



But the birds had not every one bolted, for 

 here sat two of the colony among the broken 

 rocks. These two had not been frightened off. 

 That both of them were greatly alarmed, any one 

 could see from their open beaks, their rolling 

 eyes, their tense bodies on tiptoe for flight. Yet 

 here they sat, their wings out like props, or more 

 like gripping hands, as if they were trying to hold 

 themselves down to the rocks against their wild 

 desire to fly. 



And so they were in truth, for under their ex- 

 tended wings I saw little black feet moving. 

 Those two mother murres were not going to for- 



