going on, and what the creature was that had leaped out of the grass.
Before my paddle had swung a dozen strokes I saw the alders by the brook
open swiftly, and Mother Quoskh sailed out and drove like an arrow
straight at the struggling wing tips, which still flapped spasmodically
above the grass. Almost before her feet had dropped to a solid landing
she struck two fierce, blinding, downward blows of her great wings. Her
neck curved back and shot straight out, driving the keen six-inch bill
before it, quicker than ever a Roman arm drove its javelin. Above the
_lap-lap_ of my canoe I heard a savage cry of pain; the same black
animal leaped up out of the tangled grass, snapping for the neck; and a
desperate battle began, with short gasping croaks and snarls that made
caution unnecessary as I sped over to see who the robber was, and how
Quoskh was faring in the good fight.

The canoe shot up behind a point where, looking over the low bank, I had
the arena directly under my eye. The animal was a fisher--black-cat the
trappers call him--the most savage and powerful fighter of his size in
the whole world, I think. In the instant that I first saw him, quicker
than thought he had hurled himself twice at the towering bird's breast.
Each time he was met by a lightning blow in the face from Quoskh's
stiffened wing. His teeth ground the big quills to pulp; his claws tore
them into shreds; but he got no grip in the feathery mass, and he
slipped, clawing and snarling, into the grass, only to spring again like
a flash. Again the stiff wing blow; but this time his jump was higher;
one claw gripped the shoulder, tore its way through flying feathers to
the bone, while his weight dragged the big bird down. Then Quoskh
shortened her neck in a great curve. Like a snake it glided over the
edge of her own wing for two short, sharp down-thrusts of the deadly
javelin--so quick that my eye caught only the double yellow flash of it.
With a sharp screech the black-cat leaped away and whirled towards me
blindly. One eye was gone; an angry red welt showed just over the
other, telling how narrowly the second thrust had missed its mark.

A shiver ran over me as I remembered how nearly I had once come myself
to the black-cat's condition, and from the same keen weapon. I was a
small boy at the time, following a big, good-natured hunter that I met
in the woods, one day, from pure love of the wilds and for the glory of
carrying the game bag. He shot a gr