Glen of the High North

by H. A. Cody

He watched as the bird again circled and once more swept to the attack. But he was ready, and as it swooped close enough he threw his entire remaining strength into one great swinging blow. The stick struck the eagle fair on the head with a resounding crash, and so great was the force of the impact that the cudgel snapped like a pipestem, and the broken end hurtled over the ledge. The eagle's fight was done. It swerved from its course, and frantically tried to recover itself. But all in vain. Far out over the hillside it swung, and then a helpless and inert mass, it dropped down, and crashed into the tops of the firs and jack-pines, which lifted their heads like pointed spears to receive the victim.

Reynolds watched until the bird had disappeared. Then he breathed a deep sigh of relief, and examined his wounds. His hands were bleeding, and such clothes as he had were literally torn into shreds. He was so weak that he could hardly stand, and he sank down upon the ground.

"How long will this keep up?" he panted. "What else lies before me? I am a poor specimen of a human being now, and unfitted for another encounter of any kind. This was my own fault, though. That poor devil I just sent to its doom was merely acting in self-defence. But the survival of the fittest is the law of the wilderness just as in the ways of so-called civilization. That bird had what I needed; and that settles it."

This turned his mind upon the nest, which he suspected was somewhere near. In another minute he had found it, a mass of sticks, in the midst of which was a hollow lined with wild grass, and lying there were three white eggs. Eagerly he seized one, and held it in his hand. Was it fresh? he wondered, or was it ready to be hatched?

Drawing forth his pocket-knife, he perforated each end of the egg, and smelled the contents. It was fresh, having been recently laid. In another instant it was at his parched lips, and never did he remember having tasted anything half as refreshing. Then he looked longingly at the other two.

"No, I must not eat them now," he told himself. "I shall need them for supper and breakfast. The Lord only knows when I shall get anything more."

The mention of the Lord brought back to him the picture of The Good Shepherd rescuing the lost sheep. "Strange, very strange," he mused, as he picked up the eggs and continued his climb. "Can it be possible that the Lord had anything to do with that eagle coming here just when I was about all in, and ready to drop from hunger and thirst? I am not ashamed, anyway, to confess my gratitude, even though I disliked the idea of praying."

A few minutes later he stood on the top of the hill, a bleak, desolate spot, rocky, and devoid of the least sign of vegetation. But this mattered nothing to him now, for his eyes rested almost immediately upon a silver gleam away to the left. It was water, and a river at that! An exclamation of joy leaped from his lips, as from that lonely peak he viewed the river of his salvation. Where it led, he did not know, but surely along that stream he would find human beings, able and willing to succor him.

Forgotten now was his weariness, and a new hope possessed his soul. He could not expect to reach the river that afternoon, for several valleys and small hills intervened. But he could go part of the way and on the morrow complete the journey. Carefully guarding his two precious eggs, he hurried down the opposite side of the hill as fast as it was possible, and night found him by the side of a small wood-enshrouded lake. Here he stopped, drank of the cool refreshing water, and built a small fire. Finding a smooth stone, he washed it clean, and heating it thoroughly, he was enabled to fry one of the eggs upon the surface. In the morning the other was treated in a similar manner, and thus strengthened, but his hunger not appeased, he sped onward.

This last lap of his journey to the river was a trying one. Reynolds made it more difficult by his feverish impatience, and when about the middle of the afternoon he heard the ripple of water, and caught the first gleam through the trees of its sparkling surface, he was completely exhausted, and had only sufficient strength to drag his weary form to the river's bank. A refreshing drink of the ice-cold water and a rest of a few minutes revived him. The stream was swift, far swifter than he had anticipated. But this encouraged him, for if once launched upon its surface it would bear him speedily out of that desolate wilderness.