that his injured pinion was now as strong and serviceable as ever, it was already evident that this appearance of completely restored strength was deceptive.
No human eye could have detected at this stage anything abnormal in the drake's manner of flight. But the drake himself knew that all was not well with him, that he could not fly as he was accustomed to fly; and the marvelous eyes of the gray eagle, looking straight down upon the drake as the latter passed far below him, perceived immediately that this was a duck whose powers of flight had been impaired. It was this discovery which of a sudden had determined the tyrant's course of action, and brought him shooting down like a feathered meteor from the upper air.
Possibly it was sound, not sight, which first apprised the shoveller of his peril. Possibly he heard, above the rush of the wind through his own pinions, a high, thin, wailing note the meaning of which he knew—the keen, wild song which the wind sings when it is smitten and cleft by the hard edges of the eagle's wings as the king of birds plunges upon his prey. More likely the drake's golden eyes first warned him of the danger, flaring orange-red with terror as they lit suddenly upon the dark down-rushing bulk behind and above him.
If, until then, that distant prairie lake where
