slight and would heal completely if he could keep himself alive in the meantime. But his broad pinions, which had never failed him before, were utterly useless now; and those pinions were essential to his life, an indispensable part of his hunting equipment. Without their aid he could not catch food; and although, like most birds of prey, he could endure sustained fasting, he must find sustenance sooner or later, or perish.
The heron, whose wings were not necessary for his fishing, was in no danger of starvation. The unfailing bounty of the marsh creeks would support him indefinitely. The fox's lot was harder. Yet she, too, could struggle against the fate that threatened her; she could fight with what weapons she still possessed to keep life in her body until she could use her legs again. But the eagle, so long as his wings were paralyzed, was utterly impotent; and from the first he seemed to comprehend the fact and to accept it grimly as one against which it was useless to contend.
Those piercing eyes looked always into the hazy distances and seemed to take no account of things near at hand. Their gaze rested on the white clouds which had been the eagle's companions on calm, windless mornings when he swung round and round on motionless wings in the high air, taking his ease in the upper solitudes where he had reigned. They
