Atalapha, 2 Winged Brownie 
peak. Like a falling star he dropped to Placid’s 
broad blue breast and made across the waving 
forest heads. 
For where? Did he know? For the upper 
valley of the river, for the place of the Unknown 
Death, for the woods, for the very tree in whose 
bosky top he had had the last, the fleeting glimpse 
of the soft little Silver-brown. 
There is no hunger for which there is no food. 
There is no food that will not come for the hunger 
that seeks and seeks, and will not cease from seek- 
ing. Speeding in airy wheels in the early night, 
careering around the hemlock top as though it held, 
and had held these many days, the magnet that 
he had never realized till now—and many of his 
brethren passing near wove mystic traceries in 
the air; he sensed them all about, but heeded none 
—a compass for a compass has no message—when 
a subtle influence turned him far away, another 
power, not eyes nor tactile wings; and he wheeled 
with eager rush as one who sees afar a signal long 
awaited. 
There! Yes! A newcomer of his race, of dif- 
ferent form perhaps, and size and coat, but these 
were things he had no mind to see. This had a 
different presence, an overmastering lure, a speech- 
less bidding not to be resisted, a sparkling of the 
193 
