234 WHERE ROLLS THE OREGON 



touched her feathers with the tip of one finger — 

 with two fingers — with my whole hand, while the 

 loud camera click-clacked, click-clacked hardly 

 four feet away ! 



It was a thrilling moment. I was not killing 

 anything. I had no high-powered rifle in my 

 hands, coming up against the wind toward an 

 unsuspecting creature hundreds of yards away. 

 This was no wounded leopard charging me ; no 

 mother bear defending with her giant might a 

 captured cub. It was only a mother bird, the size 

 of a wild duck, with swift wings at her command, 

 hiding under those wings her own and another's 

 young, and her own boundless fear ! 



For the second time in my life I had taken 

 captive with my bare hands a free wild bird. No, 

 I had not taken her captive. She had made her- 

 self a captive ; she had taken herself in the strong 

 net of her mother-love. 



And now her terror seemed quite gone. At the 

 first touch of my hand she felt, I think, the love 

 restraining it, and without fear or fret allowed me 

 to push my hand under her and pull out the two 

 downy babies. But she reached after them with 

 her bill to tuck them back out of sight, and when 



