of game to his aerie on the cliff; and if in this instance he postponed the fatal blow for a while, he would not have to transport the carcass so far, for his quarry was heading straight up the valley toward the blue peak of Devilhead, dimly visible in the distance. Possibly, on the other hand, the seeming deliberateness of his flight was simply an instinctive recognition of the fact that this was likely to be a hard chase, in which he must not wear himself out at the beginning. His quarry had a long start; the test was one of endurance as well as speed. With all his superb muscular development, the falcon might not win this race if at the outset he expended his strength too lavishly.
So, for a space of minutes, Cloud King's long dark pinions fanned the air with a motion scarcely more rapid than that which he habitually employed when journeying to some outlying corner of his widespread kingdom. Nevertheless, the keen, fierce eyes, fixed immovably upon that flying form far ahead, told him that he was gaining. As a matter of fact, the peregrine, though he had not yet called all his powers into play, was flying nearly twice as fast as his prospective victim.
The latter—a long-bodied, torpedo-shaped, grayand-white bird, considerably larger than a mallard, and marked with a chestnut patch on his throat—was evidently unaware of his peril. His rather
