and hid in the underbrush. He passed very near, and following, I
saw him standing on a ledge near the top of the cliff. Just below him,
in the top of a stunted tree growing out of the face of the rock was a
huge mass of sticks that formed the nest, with a great mother-eagle
standing by, feeding the little ones. Both birds started away silently
when I appeared, but came back soon and swept back and forth over me,
as I sat watching the nest and the face of the cliff through my glass.
No need now of caution. Both birds seemed to know instinctively why I
had come, and that the fate of the eaglets lay in my hands if I could
but scale the cliff.

It was scaring business, that three-hundred-foot climb up the sheer
face of the mountain. Fortunately the rock was seamed and scarred with
the wear of centuries; bushes and stunted trees grew out of countless
crevices, which gave me sure footing, and sometimes a lift of a dozen
feet or more on my way up. As I climbed, the eagles circled lower and
lower; the strong rustling of their wings was about my head
continually; they seemed to grow larger, fiercer, every moment, as my
hold grew more precarious, and the earth and the pointed tree-tops
dropped farther below. There was a good revolver in my pocket, to use
in case of necessity; but had the great birds attacked me I should
have fared badly, for at times I was obliged to grip hard with both
hands, my face to the cliff, leaving the eagles free to strike from
above and behind. I think now that had I shown fear in such a place,
or shouted, or tried to fray them away, they would have swooped upon
me, wing and claw, like furies. I could see it in their fierce eyes as
I looked up. But the thought of the times when I had hunted him, and
especially the thought of that time when I had reached out of the
bushes and touched him, was upon Old Whitehead and made him fear. So I
kept steadily on my way, apparently giving no thought to the eagles,
though deep inside I was anxious enough, and reached the foot of the
tree in which the nest was made.

I stood there a long time, my arm clasping the twisted old boll,
looking out over the forest spread wide below, partly to regain
courage, partly to reassure the eagles, which were circling very near
with a kind of intense wonder in their eyes, but chiefly to make up my
mind what to do next. The tree was easy to climb, but the nest--a huge
affair, which had been added to year after year--filled the whole