Hoof and Claw

by Sir Charles G. D. Roberts

Just about this time, in the clear blue overhead, a green-winged teal was beating his way above the treetops, making for the stream with the fear of death at his heart. A mighty flier, his short, muscular wings drove him through the air at a speed not much less than ninety or a hundred miles an hour. But behind him, overtaking him inexorably, came the shape that stood for doom itself in the eyes of all his tribe—the dreadful blue falcon, or duck-hawk. The teal knew that his only chance of escape from this long-winged pursuer was to reach the water, plunge beneath it, and swim for some hiding-place under the fringing weeds.

The teal's wings, throbbing with a swift, short vibration, whistled shrilly in the still air, so that a prowling wildcat by the waterside heard the sound even above the dull roar of the rapids, and glared upward alertly. The long wings of the hawk, bent sharply at the elbows, worked more slowly, but with a nervous, terrific thrust which urged him through the air like a projectile. For all its appalling speed, the sound of his flight was nothing more than a strong pulsating hiss.

Close ahead of him now the teal saw refuge—the flashing line of the rapids. But the hawk was already close upon him. In despair he hurled himself downward too soon. The pursuer also shot downward and struck. But the lofty top of a water ash, just missed by the short wings of the fugitive, forced the long pinion of the hawk to swerve a little, so that he partly missed his stroke. Instead of clutching the victim's neck and holding it securely, he dealt merely a glancing blow upon the back behind the wings. It was enough, however, and the unhappy teal was hurled earthward, flapping through the tips of the branches. The great hawk followed hurriedly, to retrieve his prey from the ground.

As it chanced, however, the victim came down with a thud almost beneath the whiskered nose of the wildcat. A pounce, and the great cat had her paw upon it, and crouched snarling up at the hawk. In a fury the hawk swooped and struck downward. But wisdom came to him just in time, and he did not strike home. His swoop became a demonstration merely, an expression of his rage at having his prey thus snatched from his beak. With one short, shrill cry of anger, he swerved off and sailed upward over the river. The cat growled softly, picked up the prize in her jaws and trotted into the bushes to devour it.

The spot where all this happened was perhaps a hundred yards below that dead tree upon whose outthrust naked branch the splendid merganser drake was making his meal. In fact, he had just finished it—the last of the trout's tail had just vanished with a spasm down his strained gullet—when the baffled hawk caught sight of him and swooped. Happily for him, he on his part caught sight of the hawk, and dropped like lead into the torrent. The hawk alighted on the dead branch, and sat upright, motionless, as if surprised. The change was so sudden that it almost seemed as if the duck had been metamorphosed into a hawk on the instant, by the stroke of an invisible enchanter's wand.

The fisher of the chutes, meanwhile, was swimming straight downstream for the broken water. Like his unfortunate little cousin, the teal, he, too, had felt the fear of death smitten into his heart, and was heading desperately for the refuge of some dark overhanging bank, deep-fringed with weeds, where the dreadful eye of the hawk should not discern him.

The hawk sat upon the branch and watched his quarry swimming beneath the surface. At last the swimmer came to the broken water and plunged into it. Almost instantly he was forced to the top. With only head and wings above the mad smother, he flapped onward frantically, beating down the foam about him. Straightway the hawk glided from his perch and darted after him.

The drake sank again instantly. But at this point in the rapids it was impossible for him to stay down. As long as his body was completely submerged, it was at the mercy of the twisting and tortured currents, which rolled him over and over, in spite of his swimming craft. He would have been drowned, the breath battered clean out of him, in half a minute more, had he maintained the hopelessly unequal struggle. Once more he half emerged, filled his gasping lungs, and pounded onward desperately, half flying and half swimming. It was a mongrel method of progression, in which he was singularly expert.

Immediately over his outstretched gleaming head flew the hawk. But this frequenter of the heights of air, for all his savage valor, was troubled at the leaping waves and the tossing foam of these mad rapids. He did not understand them. They seemed to jump up at him, and he dare not let his sweeping wing-tips touch them, lest they should seize and drag him down. As he flew, his down-reaching, clutching talons were not half a yard above the fugitive's head. Where the waves for an instant sank, they came closer,—but not quite within grasping reach. The marauder from the upper air was waiting till his quarry should reach less turbulent waters.