He had struck one of the young
eagles in his fall, hurled it from the nest, and brought it down with
him to this lower ledge which had given him so timely a refuge.

For several minutes, perhaps, he lay clutching the bush desperately
and staring straight upwards. There he saw both parent eagles whirling
excitedly, screaming, and staring down at him; and then the edge of
the nest, somewhat dilapidated by his strange assault, overhanging the
ledge about thirty feet above. At length his wits came back to him,
and he cautiously turned his head to see if he was in danger of
falling if he should relax his hold on the bush. He was in bewildering
pain, which seemed distributed all over him; but in spite of it he
laughed aloud, to find that the bush, to which he hung so desperately,
was in a little hollow on a spacious platform, from which he could not
have fallen by any chance. At that strange, uncomprehended sound of
human laughter the eagles ceased their screaming for a few moments and
wheeled farther aloof.

With great difficulty and anguish Horner raised himself to a sitting
position and tried to find out how seriously he was hurt. One leg was
quite helpless. He felt it all over, and came to the conclusion that
it was not actually broken; but for all the uses of a leg, for the
present at least, it might as well have been putty, except for the
fact that it pained him abominably. His left arm and shoulder, too,
seemed to be little more than useless encumbrances, and he wondered
how so many bruises and sprains could find place on one human body of
no more than average size. However, having assured himself, with
infinite relief, that there were no bones broken, he set his teeth
grimly and looked about to take account of the situation.

CHAPTER II

The ledge on which he had found refuge was apparently an isolated one,
about fifty or sixty feet in length, and vanishing into the face of
the sheer cliff at either end. It had a width of perhaps twenty-five
feet; and its surface, fairly level, held some soil in its rocky
hollows. Two or three dark-green seedling firs, a slim young silver
birch, a patch or two of wind-beaten grass, and some clumps of
harebells, azure as the clear sky overhead, softened the bareness of
this tiny, high-flung terrace. In one spot, at the back, a spread of
intense green and a handbreadth of moisture on the rock showed where a
tiny spring oozed from a crevice to keep this lonely oasis in the