The Eagle of Mission Ridge 243 



closed short off with a squeak of surprise; he threw up 

 his wings in horror and fell backward. The blue jay 

 himself would have chuckled in enjoyment at the sight, 

 if the joke had not been on him. I enjoyed it hugely, but 

 it was all Greek to the eagles. Everything to them is 

 serious. Life is a cruel, harsh reality; it is blood from 

 birth to death. 



The golden eagle appeals to me as a real baron of 

 the middle ages, with his castle and his hunting preserve. 

 The sycamore is his permanent home, the heavens above 

 the ridge and the low-lying fields are his with no ques- 

 tioning, summer and winter. He is more than a match 

 for any animal of his size. Not a beast of the field nor 

 a fowl of the air can drive him out; he stands firm before 

 every earthly power, except the hand of man. He is shy 

 and wary at all times, clean and handsome, swift in flight, 

 and strong in body. An experience gained in the fiercest 

 of schools makes the eagle as formidable as any creature 

 of the wild outdoor. 



The eagles revolted at the sight of a human being. 

 They opened their mouths in defiance when we first looked 

 over the nest edge, nor were they one whit less savage for 

 all our visits. From the first they would have rent to 

 shreds the hand that dared touch them. They submitted 

 to us as a caged lion endures his keeper. Meekness and 

 mercy are no part of the life of the eagle. Theirs was a 

 savage spirit that could no more be tamed by the human 

 hand than could the hooked beak and claws be changed. 

 Deep-set under each shaggy brow was an eye of piercing 

 glare, that seemed always searching the far-away blue of 

 the distance. It was the eye of an eagle, and nothing else 



