tling ice had nipped the muskrat's hind quarters.

Though desperately hurt, so desperately that his strong hind legs were
almost useless, the brave little animal was not swerved from his
purpose. Straight from his prison, no longer now a refuge, he dived
and swam for home through the loud uproar. But the muskrat's small
forelegs are of little use in swimming, so much so that as a rule he
carries them folded under his chin while in the water. Now, therefore,
he was at a piteous disadvantage. His progress was slow, as in a
nightmare,--such a nightmare as must often come to muskrats if their
small, careless brains know how to dream. And in spite of his frantic
efforts, he found that he could not hold himself down in the water. He
kept rising toward the surface every other second.

Balancing had by this time grown too difficult for the great, white
owl, and he had softly lifted himself on hovering wings. But not for
an instant had he forgotten the object of his hunt. What were floods
and cataclysms to him in the face of his hunger? Swiftly his shining
eyes searched the foamy, swirling water. Then, some ten feet away,
beside a pitching floe, a furry back appeared for an instant. In that
instant he swooped. The back had vanished,--but unerringly his talons
struck beneath the surface--struck and gripped their prey. The next
moment the wide, white wings beat upward heavily, and the muskrat was
lifted from the water.

As he rose into the air, though near blind with the anguish of that
iron grip, the little victim writhed upward and bit furiously at his
enemy's leg. His jaws got nothing but a bunch of fluffy feathers,
which came away and floated down the moonlight air. Then the life sank
out of his brain, and he hung limply; and the broad wings bore him
inland over the dyke-top--straight over the warm and hidden nest where
he had longed to be.

The Rivals of Ringwaak

I.

A white flood, still and wonderful, the moonlight lay on the naked
rampikes and dense thickets of Ringwaak Hill. Beneath its magic the
very rocks, harsh bulks of granite, seemed almost afloat; and every
branch, spray and leaf, swam liquidly. The rampikes, towering trunks
of pine, fire-blasted and time-bleached, lifted lonely spires of
silver over the enchanted solitude.

Apparently, there was neither sound nor motion over all Ringwaak, or
over the wide wilderness spread out below its ken. But along the
secret trails, threading the thicket, and s