WILD LIFE ON THE WING 
every time the conqueror pushed out of the 
rushes, and, by pestering her with his un- 
welcome attentions, drove her in again. 
Karruck would have left the Pool on the 
second night if the skies had been darker, or 
if the wind had blown from another quarter, 
but the clouds lifted at sunset, and the damp 
spring smells of the warm night held him. 
Therefore he saw how the usurper and Cearc- 
uise went slowly up the stream into the wood. 
He himself stayed in the Pool ; but later, when 
his rival crowed a defiance, for the first time 
since his defeat, he answered as lustily as ever. 
With the mirroring of the first star in the water 
a fox barked up on the hill. Then there was 
silence over all the woods for half an hour. 
Only the stream, swollen a little with the 
recent rain, trickled into the Pool with a 
tinkle like knowing laughter. 
Suddenly Cearc-uise, " keking " frantically, 
whizzed overhead like a driven grouse, and 
splashed into the most secret covert in the 
Pool. Karruck heard a fainter splash up the 
stream, almost like an echo, and then a strangled 
shriek. He, in his turn, hid himself with 
fear. 
Presently two dusky feathers floated down the 
stream. The water seemed to babble louder as 
it brought them to the Pool again. Perhaps 
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