to my place, wondering how long
human patience could endure the sting of insects and the hot close air
without moving or stirring a leaf, when the heavy silken rustle
sounded close at hand, and I heard the grip of his talons on the log.
There he stood, at arm's length, turning his head uneasily, the light
glinting on his white crest, the fierce, untamed flash in his bright
eye. Never before had he seemed so big, so strong, so splendid; my
heart jumped at the thought of him as our national emblem. I am glad
still to have seen that emblem once, and felt the thrill of it.

But I had little time to think, for Cheplahgan was restless. Some
instinct seemed to warn him of a danger that he could not see. The
moment his head was turned away, I stretched out my arm. Scarcely a
leaf moved with the motion, yet he whirled like a flash and crouched
to spring, his eyes glaring straight into mine with an intensity that
I could scarce endure. Perhaps I was mistaken, but in that swift
instant the hard glare in his eyes seemed to soften with fear, as he
recognized me as the one thing in the wilderness that dared to hunt
him, the king. My hand touched him fair on the shoulder; then he shot
into the air, and went sweeping in great circles over the tree-tops,
still looking down at the man, wondering and fearing at the way in
which he had been brought into the man's power.

But one thing he did not understand. Standing erect on the log, and
looking up at him as he swept over me, I kept thinking, "I did it, I
did it, Cheplahgan, old Cloud Wings. And I had grabbed your legs, and
pinned you down, and tied you in a bag, and brought you to camp, but
that I chose to let you go free. And that is better than shooting you.
Now I shall find your little ones and touch them too."

For several days I had been watching Old Whitehead's lines of flight,
and had concluded that his nest was somewhere in the hills northwest
of the big lake. I went there one afternoon, and while confused in the
big timber, which gave no outlook in any direction, I saw, not Old
Whitehead, but a larger eagle, his mate undoubtedly, flying straight
westward with food towards a great cliff, that I had noticed with my
glass one day from a mountain on the other side of the lake.

When I went there, early next morning, it was Cheplahgan himself who
showed me where his nest was. I was hunting along the foot of the
cliff when, glancing back towards the lake, I saw him coming far
away,