n attack, did not know what had happened. Huge scratching
wings were thrashing about him; his left arm stung from where a claw
had raked it; and he wrenched around to stare into two wicked slits of
eyes behind a fierce, rounded beak that jabbed at him.

* * * * *

Evidently he represented easy prey to the hawk, for it did not soar
away, but instead came at him again in a flurry of beating wings and
stabbing beak, a vicious, feathered fighter from above. Caught off
guard by the suddenness and savagery of the onslaught, Garth retreated
stumblingly, forgetting his weight and the size of the raft and
defending himself with his arms as best he could against the rushes of
the hawk. The raft tilted perilously; water washed around his legs and
he slipped and went under.

He felt his fingers slipping inexorably over the edge of the log he
had gripped; his legs threshed up a welter of foam, but he kept going
down. Panic clutched him; his weight would sink him like a stone. But
suddenly his clutching hand was gripped by steel-like talons, and
through the water he caught a glimpse of the hawk straining backwards
with mighty sweeps of its wings in an effort to lift him bodily into
the air.

His size had deceived it. It could not hoist him, but did manage to
drag his head and chest out of the water. That was enough. With an
effort, Garth scrambled onto the raft.

The hawk, probably greatly surprised by its failure to soar away with
such tiny prey, tore into him again, raking his body painfully. Hardly
knowing what he did, Garth grabbed out as it hovered over him and
succeeded in wrapping his fingers around one of its legs. Then,
bracing himself as best he could, and ignoring the scratching wings
and piercing beak, he gave the leg a sharp twist and heard the crack
of breaking bone.

He was only half-conscious of the hawk's shrill scream of pain, of
its swift retreat into the blue, with the broken leg dangling
grotesquely. For only a moment he was aware that he had driven it off;
then the pain of his wounds and his utter exhaustion swept up over
him, and he flopped down on the raft in a dead faint....

* * * * *

For a long time Garth was dimly aware of familiar noises. At first
they were faint and scarcely perceptible; but, as his senses slowly
began to return, disturbing thoughts came to him. He felt that he was
on his back, and confined, and when he twisted, to