Atalapha, a Winged Brownie 
kind, a stranger to him and of smaller finer make 
than his robust comrades on the Saranac. Its 
form brought back memories of his mother, and 
it was with something more than passing sympathy 
he saw she was being done to death by a bird of 
prey. It was early, but already the ravenous 
Chicken-hawk was about and haunting a place 
that had yielded him good hunting before. But 
why should a Bat fear the Chicken-hawk? There 
is no flyer in the sky that can follow the Great 
Hoary Bat, but follow he did, and the Bat, making 
wretched haste to escape and seeming to forget the 
tricks and arrowy speed of her kind, was losing in 
an easy race. Why? Something had sapped 
her strength. Maybe she did not know what, 
maybe she never knew, but her brain was reeling, 
her lungs were choking, she had unwittingly crossed 
the zone of the Unknown Death; and the Hawk 
screeched aloud for the triumph already in sight. 
The fierce eyes were glaring, the cruel beak was 
gaping, the deadly talons reached. But the stim- 
ulus of death so near made the numbed Bat dodge 
and wheel, and again; but each time by a narrower 
space escaped. She tried to reach a thicket, but 
the Hawk was overcunning and kept between. 
One more plunge, the victim uttered a low cry of 
despair, when whizz past the very eyes of the 
188 
