GENERAL JIM 163 
were, at any rate. Food was plentiful; now that 
the corn season was over nobody shot at them; 
and the whole flock throve and were happy. 
But one night a great and terrible enemy came. 
He certainly had no business there on the Berk- 
shire mountainside in summer, though in winter 
he was not uncommon. But in summer he should 
have been far to the north. Perhaps the hunting 
in the north had grown poor, and he had moved 
south early. At any rate, here he was—a great 
horned owl, more than two feet tall, with talons 
of terrible power and a carnivorous appetite that 
would not balk even at a skunk. Jim and the 
others in the flock were wakened toward morn- 
ing by a loud cry for help cut off into silence in 
the middle, and then by the ominous flutter of 
great wings down in the trees. Jim himself 
fairly leaped up into the air, over the woods, and 
peered down into their shadowy depths, trying to 
make out the direction in which the marauder 
was flying. He got a glimpse or two, and his 
ears told him still more, and a moment later he 
and the other crows were in pursuit, now over, 
now in the trees. 'The owl made for the deepest 
