312 ON THE EDGE OF THE WILDERNESS 
water ponds in their depths, and tangles of scrub 
oak and pine where no roads led, no clearings told 
of hated men. And here Baldy came to rest once 
more and called a certain pitch pine home. 
But he took no other mate. ‘There were other 
eagles—a few—in those swamps and along that 
shore. But his mate was dead, and he wanted no 
other. Age was upon him now, age and loneli- 
ness. He had done his best to fulfil his function 
and raise new eagles to soar above the land which 
called him its national bird; but this same land 
would not permit it. He had fought his fight— 
and lost. So, like King Philip of old, he made 
his last stand in King Philip’s swamps, or soared, 
a proud and solitary figure, over the murmuring 
shore of the ocean, looking with those piercing 
eyes—for a dead fish. It was so little he asked 
of the land, after all. He was as harmless as he 
was magnificent—as harmless asa wren. Yet no 
wren but can rear its brood in houses built for it 
by man, while he, without a mate, must fold his 
great wings in the deepest swamps. Such is the 
fate to-day of him who clutched Jove’s thunder- 
bolts. 
