ave ever been, before or since, in the
woods. I ran into the doctor's office on my way. He found three cuts
in my scalp, and below them two shorter ones, where pointed things
seemed to have been driven through to the bone. He looked at me
queerly when I told my story. Of course he did not believe me, and I
made no effort to persuade him. Indeed, I scarcely believed myself.
But for the blood which stained my handkerchief, and the throbbing
pain in my head, I should have doubted the reality of the whole
experience.

That night I started up out of sleep, some time towards morning, and
said before I was half awake: "It was an _owl_ that hit you on the
head--of course it was an owl!" Then I remembered that, years before,
an older boy had a horned owl, which he had taken from a nest, and
which he kept loose in a dark garret over the shed. None of us younger
boys dared go up to the garret, for the owl was always hungry, and the
moment a boy's head appeared through the scuttle the owl said _Hoooo!_
and swooped for it. So we used to get acquainted with the big pet by
pushing in a dead rat, or a squirrel, or a chicken, on the end of a
stick, and climbing in ourselves afterwards.

As I write, the whole picture comes back to me again vividly; the
dark, cobwebby old garret, pierced here and there by a pencil of
light, in which the motes were dancing; the fierce bird down on the
floor in the darkest corner, horns up, eyes gleaming, feathers all
a-bristle till he looked big as a bushel basket in the dim light,
standing on his game with one foot and tearing it savagely to pieces
with the other, snapping his beak and gobbling up feathers, bones and
all, in great hungry mouthfuls; and, over the scuttle, two or three
small boys staring in eager curiosity, but clinging to each other's
coats fearfully, ready to tumble down the ladder with a yell at the
first hostile demonstration.

The next afternoon I was back in the big woods to investigate. Fifty
feet behind the thicket where I had been struck was a tall dead stub
overlooking a little clearing. "That's his watch tower," I thought.
"While I was watching the deer, he was up there watching my head, and
when it moved he swooped."

I had no intention of giving him another flight at the same game, but
hid my fur cap some distance out in the clearing, tied a long string
to it, went back into the thicket with the other end of the string,
and sat down to wait. A low _Whooo-hoo-hoo!_ came fro