The chill glitter of the northern summer sunrise was washing down over
the rounded top of old Sugar Loaf. The sombre and solitary peak, bald
save for a ragged veil of blueberry and juniper scrub, seemed to topple
over the deep enshadowed valley at its foot. The valley was brimmed with
crawling vapours, and around its rim emerged spectrally the jagged crests
of the fir wood. On either side of the shrouded valley, to east and west,
stretched a chain of similar basins, but more ample, and less deeply
wrapped in mist. From these, where the vapours had begun to lift, came
radiances of unruffled water.
Where the peak leaned to the valley, the trunk of a giant pine jutted
forth slantingly from a roothold a little below the summit. Its top had
long ago been shattered by lightning and hurled away into the depths; but
from a point some ten or twelve feet below the fracture, one gaunt limb
still waved green with persistent, indomitable life. This bleached stub,
thrust out over the vast basin, hummed about by the untrammelled winds,
was the watch-tower of the great bald eagle who ruled supreme over all
the aerial vicinage of the Squatooks.
When the earliest of the morning light fell palely on the crest of Sugar
Loaf, the great eagle came to his watch-tower, leaving the nest on the
other side of the peak, where the two nestlings had begun to stir
hungrily at the first premonition of dawn. Launching majestically from
the edge of the nest, he had swooped down into the cold shadow, then,
rising into the light by a splendid spiral, with muffled resonance of
wing-stroke, he had taken a survey of the empty, glimmering world. It was
still quite too dark for hunting, down there on earth, hungry though the
nestlings were. He soared, and soared, till presently he saw his
wide-winged mate, too, leave the nest, and beat swiftly off toward the
Tuladi Lakes, her own special hunting-grounds. Then he dropped quietly to
his blanched pine-top on the leaning side of the summit.
[Illustration: “HE SAW HIS WIDE-WINGED MATE, TOO, LEAVE THE NEST.”]
Erect and moveless he sat in the growing light, his snowy, flat-crowned
head thrust a little forward, consciously lord of the air. His powerful
beak, long and scythe-edged, curved over sharply at the end in a rending
hook. His eyes, clear, direct, unacquainted with fear, had a certain
hardness in their vitreous brilliancy, perhaps by reason of the sharp
contrast between the bright gold iris and the unfathomable pupil, and the
straight line of the low overhanging brow gave them a savage intensity of
penetration. His neck and tail were of the same snowy whiteness as his
snake-like head, while the rest of his body was a deep, shadowy brown,
close kin to black.
Suddenly, far, far down, winging swiftly in a straight line through the
topmost fold of the mist drift, he saw a duck flying from one lake to
another. The errand of the duck was probably an unwonted one, of some
special urgency, or he would not have flown so high and taken the
straight route over the forest; for at this season the duck of inland
waters is apt to fly low and follow the watercourse. However that may be,
he had forgotten the piercing eyes that kept watch from the peak of old
Sugar Loaf.
The eagle lifted and spread the sombre amplitude of his wings, and glided
from his perch in a long curve, till he balanced above the unconscious
voyager. Then down went his head; his wings shut close, his feathers
hardened till he was like a wedge of steel, and down he shot with
breathless, appalling speed. But the duck was travelling fast, and the
great eagle saw that the mere speed of dropping like a thunderbolt was
insufficient for his purpose. Two or three quick, short, fierce thrusts
of his pinions, and the speed of his descent was more than doubled. The
duck heard an awful hissing in the air above him. But before he could
swerve to look up he was struck, whirled away, blotted out of life.
Carried downward with his quarry by the rush of his descent, the eagle
spread his pinions and rose sharply just before he reached the nearest
tree-tops. High he mounted on still wings with that tremendous impulse.
Then, as the impulse failed, his wings began to flap strongly, and he
flew off with business-like directness toward the eyrie on the other
slope of Sugar Loaf. The head and legs of the duck hung limply from the
clutch of his talons.
The nest was a seemingly haphazard collection of sticks, like a hay-cart
load of rubbish, deposited on a ledge of the mountainside. In reality,
every stick in the structure had been selected with care, and so adeptly
fitted that the nest stood unshaken beneath the wildest storms that swept
old Sugar Loaf. The ground below the ledge was strewn with the faggots
and branches which the careful builders had rejected. The nest had the
appearance of being merely laid upon the ledge, but in reality its
foundations were firmly locked into a ragged crevice which cleft the
ledge at that point.
As the eagle drew near with his prey, he saw his mate winging heavily
from the Tuladis, a large fish hanging from her talons. They met at the
nest’s edge, and two heavy-bodied, soot-coloured, half-fledged nestlings,
with wings half spread in eagerness, thrust up hungry, gaping beaks to
greet them. The fish, as being the choicer morsel, was first torn to
fragments and fed to these greedy beaks; and the duck followed in a few
moments, the young ones gulping their meal with grotesque contortions and
ecstatic liftings of their wings. Being already much more than half the
size of their parents, and growing almost visibly, and expending vast
vitality in the production of their first feathers, their appetites were
prodigious. Not until these appetites seemed to be, for the moment,
stayed, and the eaglets sank back contentedly upon the nest, did the old
birds fly off to forage for themselves, leaving a bloody garniture of
bones and feathers upon the threshold of their home.
The king—who, though smaller than his mate, was her lord by virtue of
superior initiative and more assured, equable daring—returned at once to
his watch-tower on the lake side of the summit. It had become his habit
to initiate every enterprise from that starting-point. Perching
motionless for a few minutes, he surveyed the whole wide landscape of the
Squatook Lakes, with the great waters of Lake Temiscouata gleaming to the
northwest, and the peak of Bald Mountain, old Sugar Loaf’s rival, lifting
a defiant front from the shores of Nictau Lake, far to the south.
The last wisp of vapour had vanished, drunk up by the rising sun, and the
eagle’s eye had clear command of every district of his realm. It was upon
the little lake far below him that his interest presently centred itself.
There, at no great height above the unruffled waters, he saw a fish-hawk
sailing, now tilted to one side or the other on moveless wing, now
flapping hurriedly to another course, as if he were scrupulously
quartering the whole lake surface.
The king recognised with satisfaction the diligence of this, the most
serviceable, though most unwilling, of his subjects. In leisurely fashion
he swung off from his perch, and presently was whirling in slow spirals
directly over the centre of the lake. Up, up he mounted, till he was a
mere speck in the blue, and seemingly oblivious of all that went on
below; but, as he wheeled, there in his supreme altitude, his grim white
head was stretched ever earthward, and his eyes lost no detail of the
fish-hawk’s diligence.
All at once, the fish-hawk was seen to poise on steady wing. Then his
wings closed, and he shot downward like a javelin. The still waters of
the lake were broken with a violent splash, and the fish-hawk’s body for
a moment almost disappeared. Then, with a struggle and a heavy flapping
of wings, the daring fisher arose, grasping in his victorious claws a
large “togue” or gray lake trout. He rose till he was well above the
tree-tops of the near-by shore, and then headed for his nest in the cedar
swamp.
This was the moment for which the eagle had been waiting, up in the blue.
Again his vast wings folded themselves. Again his plumage hardened to a
wedge of steel. Again he dropped like a plummet. But this time he had no
slaughterous intent. He was merely descending out of the heavens to take
tribute. Before he reached the hurrying fish-hawk he swerved upward,
steadied himself, and flapped a menacing wing in the fish-hawk’s face,
heading it out again toward the centre of the lake.
Frightened, angry, and obstinate, the big hawk clutched his prize the
closer, and made futile efforts to reach the tree-tops. But, fleet though
he was, he was no match for the fleetness of his master. The great eagle
was over him, under him, around him, all at once, yet never striking him.
The king was simply indicating, quite unmistakably, his pleasure, which
was that the fish should be delivered up.
Suddenly, however, seeing that the fish-hawk was obstinate, the eagle
lost patience. It was time, he concluded, to end the folly. He had no
wish to harm the fish-hawk,—a most useful creature, and none too abundant
for his kingly needs. In fact, he was always careful not to exact too
heavy a tribute from the industrious fisherman, lest the latter should
grow discouraged and remove to freer waters. Of the spoils of his fishing
the big hawk was always allowed to keep enough to satisfy the
requirements of himself and his nestlings. But it was necessary that
there should be no foolish misunderstanding on the subject.
[Illustration: “HOLDING THE FISH FIRMLY IN THE CLUTCH OF ONE GREAT
TALON.”]
The eagle swung away, wheeled sharply with an ominous, harsh rustling of
stiffened feathers, and then came at the hawk with a yelp and a sudden
tremendous rush. His beak was half open. His great talons were drawn
forward and extended for a deadly stroke. His wings darkened broadly over
the fugitive. His sound, his shadow,—they were doom itself, annihilation
to the frightened hawk.
But that deadly stroke was not delivered. The threat was enough.
Shrinking aside with a scream the fish-hawk opened his claws, and the
trout fell, a gleaming bar of silver in the morning light. On the instant
the eagle half closed his wings, tilted sideways, and swooped. He did not
drop, as he had descended upon the voyaging duck, but with a peculiar
shortened wing-stroke, he flew straight downward for perhaps a hundred
feet. Then, with this tremendous impulse driving him, he shot down like
lightning, caught the fish some twenty feet above the water, turned, and
rose in a long, magnificent slant, with the tribute borne in his talons.
He sailed away majestically to his watch-tower on old Sugar Loaf, to make
his meal at leisure, while the ruffled hawk beat away rapidly down the
river to try his luck in the lower lake.
Holding the fish firmly in the clutch of one great talon, the eagle tore
it to pieces and swallowed it with savage haste. Then he straightened
himself, twisted and stretched his neck once or twice, settled back into
erect and tranquil dignity, and swept a kingly glance over all his
domain, from the far head of Big Squatook, to the alder-crowded outlet of
Fourth Lake. He saw unmoved the fish-hawk capture another prize, and fly
off with it in triumph to his hidden nest in the swamp. He saw two more
ducks winging their way from a sheltered cove to a wide, green reed-bed
at the head of the thoroughfare. Being a right kingly monarch, he had no
desire to trouble them. Untainted by the lust of killing, he killed only
when the need was upon him.
Having preened himself with some care, polished his great beak on the dry
wood of the stub, and stretched each wing, deliberately and slowly, the
one after the other, with crisp rustling noises, till each strong-shanked
plume tingled pleasantly in its socket and fitted with the utmost nicety
to its overlapping fellows, he bethought him once more of the appetites
of his nestlings. There were no more industrious fish-hawks in sight.
Neither hare nor grouse was stirring in the brushy opens. No living
creatures were visible save a pair of loons chasing each other off the
point of Sugar Loaf Island, and an Indian in his canoe just paddling down
to the outlet to spear suckers.
The eagle knew that the loons were no concern of his. They were never to
be caught napping. They could dive quicker than he could swoop and
strike. The Indian also he knew, and from long experience had learned to
regard him as inoffensive. He had often watched, with feelings as near
akin to jealousy as his arrogant heart could entertain, the spearing of
suckers and whitefish. And now the sight determined him to go fishing on
his own account. He remembered a point of shoals on Big Squatook where
large fish were wont to lie basking in the sun, and where sick or
disabled fish were frequently washed ashore. Here he might gather some
spoil of the shallows, pending the time when he could again take tribute
of the fish-hawk. Once more he launched himself from his watch-tower
under the peak of Sugar Loaf, and sailed away over the serried green tops
of the forest.