instinctively, I clutched the heavy rifle which Gillie put
into my hand and jumped out of the canoe; for with a rifle one wants
steady footing. It was a long shot, but not so very difficult; Old
Whitehead had got his bearings and was moving steadily, straight away.
A second after the report of the rifle, we saw him hitch and swerve in
the air; then two white quills came floating down, and as he turned we
saw the break in his broad white tail. And that was the mark that we
knew him by ever afterwards.

That was nearly eighty miles by canoe from where we now stood, though
scarcely ten in a straight line over the mountains; for the rivers and
lakes we were following doubled back almost to the starting point; and
the whole wild, splendid country was the eagle's hunting ground.
Wherever I went I saw him, following the rivers for stranded trout and
salmon, or floating high in air where he could overlook two or three
wilderness lakes, with as many honest fish-hawks catching their
dinners. I had promised the curator of a museum that I would get him
an eagle that summer, and so took to hunting the great bird
diligently. But hunting was of little use, except to teach me many of
his ways and habits; for he seemed to have eyes and ears all over him;
and whether I crept like a snake through the woods, or floated like a
wild duck in my canoe over the water, he always saw or heard me, and
was off before I could get within shooting distance.

Then I tried to trap him. I placed two large trout, with a steel trap
between them, in a shallow spot on the river that I could watch from
my camp on a bluff, half a mile below. Next day Gillie, who was more
eager than I, set up a shout; and running out I saw Old Whitehead
standing in the shallows and flopping about the trap. We jumped into a
canoe and pushed up river in hot haste, singing in exultation that we
had the fierce old bird at last. When we doubled the last point that
hid the shallows, there was Old Whitehead, still tugging away at a
fish, and splashing the water not thirty yards away. I shall not soon
forget his attitude and expression as we shot round the point, his
body erect and rigid, his wings half spread, his head thrust forward,
eyelids drawn straight, and a strong fierce gleam of freedom and utter
wildness in his bright eyes. So he stood, a magnificent creature, till
we were almost upon him,--when he rose quietly, taking one of the
trout. The other was already in his stomach.