The Way of the Wild

by F. St. Mars

The skua was sitting motionless, with his head looking straight in front of him. The dark form came from behind, and there would have been no time for the skua to move before the thing, whatever it was, had him by the back of the neck, and dead, save for one little tiny fact. As it propelled itself forward, in the first bound, the claws of the beast's hindpaw's scraped upon a stone. It was only a little sound, and it gave the skua barely a fraction of a second's warning; but, he being a wild thing, it was enough.

Quick as light the bird had half turned upon one side, and flung up one claw and wing to cover his neck, whilst his head jerked round hindpart before in the same atom of time.

Thus it happened that the beast, unable to stop, found himself with his head and eyes being dug at by a hooked beak, and his jaws closed upon a skinny leg instead of upon the skua's spinal column, as he had intended, which would have put the skua out of life like turning out a gas-jet.

And it was then, in that instant, that the moon chose to dodge from behind a cloud and reveal the beast as a big, long, lean, and hungry dog-stoat. Probably he had thought that the skua was a gull, and a wounded one. There is a difference, however, between the skuas and the gulls, though they bear a family likeness. He discovered the difference now, and for the next few minutes was not overjoyed at the knowledge.

One cannot do much blood-sucking to weaken one's prey out of a scrawny leg that resembles a twig wrapped round with leather. And the stoat found this out, too, and he would have shifted his hold to the bird's body like a flash, if he had been given a chance, but he never was.

Before he knew what was happening, he was blinded by the beating of vast wings, his claws began to slip and slide, and—oh, horror!—still slipping and sliding, he found the bowlder going from him. It went from him, receding downwards with terrifying rapidity, and the dancing, silvery, sparkling water was sliding below, too.

Being a stoat, he hung on with V.C. doggedness and courage; but it was the worst thing he could have done. Moreover, as it was, he forced the bird to attempt reprisals in mid-air—a terrible proceeding.

Now, this was difficult, might almost seem impossible; but the skua is one of the most wonderful flyers that haunt the seas even—and most of the best are there—and what he could not execute in the air was scarcely worth mentioning. It included in this case a perfectly diabolical scraping of the foe's head with his available claw, and after that, since the dogged stoat did not leave go, and the pain was excruciating, a wonderful bend forward, and, at a pronounced and dangerous angle, a fiendish stabbing at the stoat's head with his murderous beak. This last involved a drop of nearly a hundred feet, but it did the trick.

Blinded, dazed, shaken, and maddened by the agony of blows upon his sensitive nose, the stoat opened his jaws to grip higher up the leg; and in an instant he was gone, turning over and over, down, down, down to the hungry waves below.

Ten minutes later the skua was calmly and safely asleep upon the top of a frowning black stack of rock, untroubled, I think, even by dreams of the terrible things he had gone through.