e of themselves as their
parents. It was a surprise to him, also, to see that they were quite
unlike their parents in color, being black all over from head to tail,
instead of a rich brown with snow-white head, neck, and tail. As he
stared, he slowly realized that the mystery of the rare "black eagle"
was explained. He had seen one once, flying heavily just above the
tree-tops, and imagined it a discovery of his own. But now he reached
the just conclusion that it had been merely a youngster in its first
plumage.

As he stared, the two young birds returned his gaze with interest,
watching him with steady, yellow, undaunted eyes from under their
flat, fierce brows; with high-shouldered wings half raised, they
appeared quite ready to resent any familiarity which the strange
intruder might be contemplating.

Horner lay face downward on his ledge, and studied the perpendicular
rock below him for a way to reach the next. He had no very definite
idea what he wanted to do when he got there; possibly, if the
undertaking seemed feasible, he might carry off one of the royal brood
and amuse himself with trying to domesticate it. But, at any rate, he
hoped to add something, by a closer inspection, to his rather
inadequate knowledge of eagles.

And this hope, indeed, as he learned the next moment, was not
unjustified. Cautiously he was lowering himself over the edge, feeling
for the scanty and elusive foothold, when all at once the air was
filled with a rush of mighty wings, which seemed about to overwhelm
him. A rigid wing-tip buffeted him so sharply that he lost his hold on
the ledge. With a yell of consternation, which caused his assailant to
veer off, startled, he fell backwards, and plunged down straight upon
the nest.

It was the nest only that saved him from instant death. Tough and
elastic, it broke his fall; but at the same time its elasticity threw
him off, and on the rebound he went rolling and bumping on down the
steep slopes below the ledge, with the screaming of the eagles in his
ears, and a sickening sense in his heart that the sunlit world
tumbling and turning somersaults before his blurred sight was his last
view of life. Then, to his dim surprise, he was brought up with a
thump; and clutching desperately at a bush which scraped his face, he
lay still. At the same moment a flapping mass of feathers and fierce
claws landed on top of him, but only to scramble off again as swiftly
as possible with a hoarse squawk.