from which to look over and see the easrlets, 



55 

 without tearing the nest to pieces. I did not 



want to do that ; and I doubted whether the Cloud'tOinjgs 

 mother eagle would stand it. A dozen times CTj^^g/e 

 she seemed on the point of dropping on my 

 head to tear it with her talons; but always 

 she veered off as I looked up quietly, and Old 

 Whitehead, with the mark of my bullet strong 

 upon him, swept between her and me and 

 seemed to say, " Wait, wait ! I don't under- 

 stand ; but he can kill us if he will — and the 

 little ones are in his power." Now he was 

 closer to me than ever, and the fear was van- 

 ishing. But so also was the fierceness. 



From the foot of the tree the crevice in 

 which it grew led upwards to the right, then 

 doubled back to the ledge above the nest 

 upon which Cheplahgan was standing when 

 I discovered him. The lip of this crevice 

 made a dizzy path that one might follow by 

 moving crabwise, his face to the cliff, with 

 only its roughnesses to cling to with his 

 fingers. I tried it at last; crept up and out 

 twenty feet, and back ten, and dropped with 

 a great breath of relief to a broad ledge 



