as he supposed. One duck shot had struck the eagle's body near the base of the right wing. It must have pierced or torn some muscle or tendon essential for the operation of that wing; for, although for some minutes the great bird had continued to drive forward and upward with strong steady strokes, each wing beat brought a stab of pain which rapidly became intolerable. Had Jen followed the eagle's flight a few moments longer he would have seen the bird waver in the air before it had flown a mile, then turn and sail with set, rigid wings down to a small hummock in the marsh known as Half-Acre Island.
Tall large-leaved weeds, yellow and drooping now that summer had passed, interspersed with tufts of stiff-stemmed, gray-green grass, covered the hummock's surface. Here and there stood small dense clumps of evergreen cassena bushes, salt-water myrtles and sword-bladed, needle-pointed yuccas. Near the middle of the little island an ancient live oak, stunted but vigorous and green, cast a shade so dense that neither weeds nor grass grew within the circle of its branches. In the cassenas a small colony of Louisiana herons had reared their young. Their abandoned platforms of sticks were scattered everywhere through the evergreen thickets, which supported also the deserted homes of scores of boat-tailed grackles. In spring and early summer the
