them from these aerial wayfarers which as yet were the only ones among the wild folk that their eyes had ever looked upon.
Storm-Rider, the golden eagle of Younaguska, looked down from the high air and saw on a sunny ledge of Unaka Kanoos four small furry creatures which moved erratically here and there. Whether or not he knew what they were; whether or not he recognized them as the young of Koe-Ishto the puma; whether or not there flashed into his brain at that moment memory of the morning not long ago when Koe-Ishto had robbed him of his prey—these are questions which no man can answer. But certain it is that, after watching them for a while, he spiraled gradually downward for perhaps five hundred feet, then closed his wide wings and plunged.
If the puma cubs heard the low hum of his coming, they did not know what it was or what it meant. If they saw that living spearhead shooting down from the sky, pinions half-opened now, widespread talons thrust beneath it, trenchant beak pointing straight downward, they saw it too late to regain the shelter of the cave.
Storm-Rider chose as his target the cub which happened to be closest to the brink of the precipice. A moment the baby pumas crouched in terror as the air, buffeted by mighty wings, swirled and eddied
