She was a beautiful woman, tall and fair, with a cheery, open countenance. Laughing heartily, she took a bun from the platter, and held it above her head.
"If you want it, come and take it!" she challenged.
While the eagle did not understand her language, he knew at once that she was offering him the bun. With lightning speed, he swooped to the bread, snatched it, and flew toward the heights.
When the boy saw the eagle snatch the bread he wept for joy—not because he would escape suffering hunger for a few days, but because he was touched by the peasant woman's sharing her bread with a savage bird of prey.
Where he now sat on the pine branch he could recall at will the tall, fair woman as she stood in the yard and held up the bread.
She must have known that the large bird was a golden eagle—a plunderer, who was usually welcomed with loud shots; doubtless she had also seen the queer changeling he bore on his back. But she had not thought of what they were. As soon as she understood that they were hungry, she shared her good bread with them.
"If I ever become human again," thought the boy, "I shall look up the pretty woman who lives near the great river, and thank her for her kindness to us."
THE FOREST FIRE
While the boy was still at his breakfast he smelled a faint odour of smoke coming from the north. He turned and saw a tiny spiral, white as a mist, rise from a forest ridge—not from the one nearest him, but from the one beyond it. It looked strange to see smoke in the wild forest, but it might be that a mountain stock farm lay over yonder, and the women were boiling their morning coffee.
It was remarkable the way that smoke increased and spread! It could not come from a ranch, but perhaps there were charcoal kilns in the forest.