294. ON THE EDGE OF THE WILDERNESS 
laid, and this time the eggs were taken before 
they were hatched. It may have been by the 
same person—the parents never knew. SBaldy’s 
mate, seeing something in the tree while she was 
in the air a full five miles away, had made for the 
spot with all speed, but the robber saw and heard 
her coming before she was near enough to do 
anything, and slid rapidly to earth, with the 
precious eggs. As she hovered and dove, crying 
and screaming, over the spot, a flame smote her 
eyes, a noise assailed her ears, and something 
twanged by her in the air, nipping a wing feather 
as it passed. ‘There were no more attempts at a 
family that year. 
But now, this second spring, the nest had been 
rebuilt on the ruins of the old (making it, to be 
sure, yet higher and more conspicuous), and two 
eggs had been laid and hatched, and no robber 
had come to disturb them. They were proud and 
happy parents at last. And what wonder and 
beauty they added to the wild mountain uplands, 
as their calls dropped down from the high air into 
the silence of the forest; as they looped their 
majestic circles over the billowing waves of tree 
