from his perch, calmly, coolly, yet with a certain fierceness gleaming in his yellow eyes.
Probably she did not understand clearly the meaning of that intent, steady gaze. She had had no experience with eagles and it did not occur to her to regard this one as a possible menace; yet the chances are that the eagle was now watching her for the same grim reason which had caused her to watch him—that the hunger which had begun to torture him was focusing his thoughts upon her as a possible source of food.
She was the one living thing that ever came within his reach, spending a part of each day lying half hidden in the grass not more than thirty feet from his perch. The habit of a lifetime was strong in him. Every morning before dawn he preened his feathers and went through his regular stretching exercises; and whereas at first he could not move his wings without acute pain, the injured muscle had now so far healed that he could open his pinions to more than half their accustomed spread. He knew that he was not yet able to fly, that he could not flap his wings strongly or ascend into the air. But he could easily glide down to where the fox lay and land squarely upon her; and more and more intently, as his hunger sharpened, he watched her lying there; more and more definite became the
