“I’ll have him now,” muttered Rod, poking the muzzle of his rifle out through the boughs. “You take the bear. Ready! now!”
We blazed away. With a wild shriek the eagle came tumbling down through the hemlock. Rod ran out towards him, and I made up to the bear. Old Bruin was merely wounded—an ugly flesh wound; and not knowing whence it came, he had flown at the dead lynx,—for such it turned out to be,—and was giving him another hugging. Seeing me, he started up, to rectify his mistake, probably; but I had put in another charge, and instantly gave him a quietus. Just then Rod came up, dragging the eagle.
“Never saw one like it,” exclaimed he. “I mean to take it down to Greenville.”
After skinning the bear and the lynx, we gathered up the traps, and went down to our camp. Together with the spoils of the moose, we had now a full canoe load, and stowing them in, went down the river that afternoon. Two days after, we arrived at Greenville, at the foot of Moosehead Lake. There we fell in with a party of tourists—from Boston, I believe. They pronounced Rod’s “big bird” to be a golden eagle.
C. A. Stephens.
WORSHIP OF NATURE.
THE green earth sends her incense up
From many a mountain shrine;
From folded leaf and dewy cup,
She pours her sacred wine.
The mists above the morning rills
Rise white as wings of prayer;
The altar curtains of the hills
Are sunset’s purple air.