"THE WATER SPLASHED HIGH AND WHITE ABOUT HIM."
IV
There was a harsh, strong hissing in the air, and a dark body fell out of the sky. Fell? Rather it seemed to have been shot downward from a catapult. No mere falling could be so swift as that sheer yet governed descent. Just at the surface of the water the wedge of the eagle's body turned, his snow-white head and neck bent upwards, his broad wings spread, and beat heavily. In spite of the terrific force of his descent, his body did not go wholly under water, but the water splashed high and white about him. The next instant he rose clear, flapping ponderously. In the iron clutch of his talons writhed the great trout, gripped behind the head and by the middle of the back, its tail thrashing spasmodically.
Never before had this fierce and majestic visitant from the upper silence fallen upon so difficult a prey. Its weight, alone, was all that his mighty wings could lift; and its vehement writhings were so full of energy that it was all he could do to hold it. With his most strenuous flapping, he could hardly lift the victim clear of the water. To bear it off to his lonely rock-ledge on the peak was manifestly impossible. After a few moments of laborious indecision he beat his way heavily toward shore. Nowhere, up and down the beach, in the thickets, or in the dark corridors of the forest, could his piercing eyes detect any foe.
The nearest point of land was an arrow ribbon of clean white rock with a screen of Indian willow close behind it. This point he made for. A few feet above the water's edge he alighted. For a moment he stood haughtily, his hard, implacable yellow eyes challenging the wilderness. Then, his snake-like white head stooped quickly forward, and his powerful beak bit clear through to the victim's backbone, a little behind the spot where it joined the neck. The trout's body stiffened straight out, with a strong shudder, then lay limp and still. Very deliberately, as if scorning to display his hunger, the royal bird began to make his meal.
But one palpitating morsel had gone down his outstretched, snowy throat, when it seemed to him that a leaf whispered in the willow thicket behind him. There was no air stirring, so why should a leaf whisper? His claws relaxed their grip upon the prey; his wings shot out and gave one powerful flap; he bounced lightly upward and aside. At the same moment a black bulk burst out from the willow thicket, and a great black paw smote at him savagely.
The eagle had sprung aside just in time. Had that terrific buffet fairly reached him, never again would he have mounted to his aërial haunts of silence. But as it was, the sweep of the black paw just touched the bird's tail. Two or three dark, regal feathers fluttered to the ground. His spacious pinions caught the air and winnowed out a few feet over the water. The bear, content at having captured the prize, paid no more attention to him, but greedily fell upon the prey.
Ordinarily, an eagle would no more think of interfering with a bear than of assailing a granite boulder. But in this case the aggravation was unprecedented. Never before had the "King of the Air" known what it was to have his lawful prey and hard-won spoils snatched from him. With a sudden sharp yelp of rage he whirled, shot upward, and swooped, with a twang of stiff-set feathers, straight at his adversary's head. Totally unprepared for such a daring assault, the bear could not ward it off. Several sudden red gashes on his head showed where those knife-like talons had struck. "Wah!" he bawled, half-rising on his haunches and throwing up a great forearm in defence. The eagle, swooping upward out of reach, swung round and hovered as if about to repeat the attack.
As the bear crouched, half-sitting, one paw on the mangled prey, the other uplifted in readiness for stroke or parry, the furious bird hesitated. He knew the full menace of that massive upraised paw, which, clumsy though it looked, could strike as swiftly as the darting head of a snake. For all his rage, he had no mind to risk a maimed wing. In a second or two he swooped again, this time as if to catch the foe in the back; but he took care not to come too close. The bear whirled on his haunches, and struck viciously; but his claws met nothing but empty air, while a stiff wing-tip brushed smartingly across his eyes.