WLIJD L'lFE ON THE WING 
Often it was the beginning of the end, and they 
waited for him to fall from exhaustion and give 
them the opportunity to deal a death-blow. 
It was near nightfall one by one lights 
appeared in the cottages in the lowlands, and 
the snowdrifts stood out startlingly white 
against the leaden sky. But as Fionog-liat fled 
with the fear of death behind him, slowly but 
surely his strength returned, and with it his 
hardihood. His limbs were still feeble, but he 
could control them ; his heart throbbed more 
steadily, and his voice came back to him. The 
west wind, with a promise of rain, blew against 
the crag. He spread his wings against it, and 
soared thirty feet up. As a tide retreats sullenly 
from the beaches, so the clutch of the poison 
at his throat relaxed, and he gave the old rally- 
ing call to his band. And although a minute 
before he had been their last resource against 
starvation, they recognized it. Only for a 
moment did they hesitate. Then by all the 
laws of the crow-breed he became their leader 
once more, to be feared and hated perhaps, but 
none the less to be obeyed. With answering 
clamour, they rose sedately, still weak with 
famine, but once more under their leader's rule, 
and all three winged their way slowly through 
the dusk to the woods. 
134 
