eat blue heron, which fell with a
broken wing into some soft mud and water grass. Carelessly he sent me to
fetch it, not caring to wet his own feet. As I ran up, the heron lay
resting quietly, his neck drawn back, his long keen bill pointing always
straight at my face. I had never seen so big a bird before, and bent
over him wondering at his long bill, admiring his intensely bright eye.

I did not know then--what I have since learned well--that you can always
tell when the rush or spring or blow of any beast or bird--or of any
man, for that matter--will surely come by watching the eye closely.
There is a fire that blazes in the eye before the blow comes, before
ever a muscle has stirred to do the brain's quick bidding. As I bent
over, fascinated by the keen, bright look of the wounded bird, and
reached down my hand to pick him up, there was a flash deep in the eye,
like the glint of sunshine from a mirror, and I dodged instinctively.
Well for me that I did so. Something shot by my face like lightning,
opening up a long red gash across my left temple from eye-brow to ear.
As I jumped I heard a careless laugh. "Look out, Sonny, he may bite
you--Gosh! what a close call!" And with a white, scared face, as he saw
the ugly wound that the heron's beak had opened, he dragged me away as
if there had been a bear in the water grass.

The black-cat had not yet received punishment enough. He is one of the
largest of the weasel family, and has a double measure of the weasel's
savageness and tenacity. He darted about the heron in a quick, nervous,
jumping circle, looking for an opening behind; while Quoskh lifted her
great torn wings as a shield and turned slowly on the defensive, so as
always to face the danger. A dozen times the fisher jumped, filling the
air with feathers; a dozen times the stiffened wings struck down to
intercept his spring, and every blow was followed by a swift javelin
thrust. Then, as the fisher crouched snarling in the grass, off his
guard for an instant, I saw Mother Quoskh take a sudden step forward,
her first offensive move--just as I had seen her twenty times at the
finish of a frog stalk--and her bill shot down with the whole power
of her long neck behind it. A harsh screech of pain followed the swift
blow; then the fisher wobbled away with blind, uncertain jumps towards
the shelter of the woods.

[Illustration: "A DOZEN TIMES THE FISHER JUMPED, FILLING THE AIR WITH
FEATHERS"]

And now, with her savag