e said to his wife, "Don't go outside the house while I am
away, for fear of the birds."

After he was gone she noticed that the water tub was empty, and took a
bucket to go to the river for water. As she bent over to fill the
vessel a roaring noise like thunder filled the air, and one of the
birds darted down and seized her in its talons. The villagers saw the
bird swoop down, and they wailed aloud in sorrow and terror as they
watched her being carried through the air to the mountain top.

The hunter came home and the villagers gathered about with many
lamentations. "Oh, pitiful! pitiful! your pretty wife was carried away
by the thunderbirds! Too bad! Too bad! By this time she is torn to
pieces and fed to the young demons!"

Not one word did the husband utter. Going into his empty house he took
down his bow and his quiver of war arrows and started toward the
mountain.

"Don't go! Don't go!" cried the villagers; "of what use is it? She is
dead and devoured ere this. You will only add one more to their
victims."

Not a word did the hunter reply. He strode on and on and they watched
him climbing up and up the mountainside till he was lost to view. At
last he gained the rim of the nest and looked in. The old birds were
away, but the fierce young eagles greeted him with shrill cries and
fiery, flashing eyes. The hunter's heart was full of anger and he
quickly bent his bow, loosing the war arrows one after another till
the last one of the hateful birds lay dead in the nest.

With heart still burning for revenge, the hunter hid himself beside a
great rock near the nest and waited for the parent birds. They came.
They saw their young lying dead and bloody in the nest, and their
cries of rage echoed from the cliffs on the farther side of the great
river. They soared up into the air looking for the one who had killed
their young. Quickly they saw the brave hunter beside the great stone,
and the mother bird swooped down upon him, her wings sounding like a
gale in a spruce forest. Swiftly fitting an arrow to the string, as
the eagle came down the hunter sent it deep into her throat. With a
hoarse cry she turned and flew away over the hills far to the north.

The father bird had been circling overhead and came roaring down upon
the hunter, who, at the right moment, crouched close to the ground
behind the stone, and the eagle's sharp claws struck only the hard
rock. As the bird arose, eager to swoop down again, the hunter sp