Bannertail 



Writhing with agony, overwhelmed 

 with loathing, he lay almost as dead, and 

 the smallest enemy he ever had might 

 now and easily have wreaked the limit of 

 revenge. It was accident so far as he 

 was concerned that made him crawl into a 

 dense thicket and like dead to lie all that 

 day and the night and the next day. 

 And dead he would have been but for the 

 unusual vigor of his superb body. Good 

 Mother Carey kept his enemies away. 



Back at the home nest the mate and 

 family missed him, not much or point- 

 edly, as would folk of a larger brain and 

 life, but they missed him; and from the 

 tall, smooth shaft that afternoon the lit- 

 tle mother sent a long "qua" call. But 

 there was no answering "qua." She had 

 no means of knowing ; she had no way of 

 giving help had she known. 



The sun was low on Jersey hills that 

 second day when poor broken Bannertail, 



[196] 



