a
deaf ear to all his mother's assurances that he could fly just as
easily to the tree-tops below, if he only would.

Suddenly, as if discouraged, she rose well above him. I held my
breath, for I knew what was coming. The little fellow stood on the
edge of the nest, looking down at the plunge which he dared not take.
There was a sharp cry from behind, which made him alert, tense as a
watch-spring. The next instant the mother-eagle had swooped, striking
the nest at his feet, sending his support of twigs and himself with
them out into the air together.

He was afloat now, afloat on the blue air in spite of himself, and
flapped lustily for life. Over him, under him, beside him hovered the
mother on tireless wings, calling softly that she was there. But the
awful fear of the depths and the lance tops of the spruces was upon
the little one; his flapping grew more wild; he fell faster and
faster. Suddenly--more in fright, it seemed to me, than because he had
spent his strength--he lost his balance and tipped head downward in
the air. It was all over now, it seemed; he folded his wings to be
dashed in pieces among the trees. Then like a flash the old
mother-eagle shot under him; his despairing feet touched her broad
shoulders, between her wings. He righted himself, rested an instant,
found his head; then she dropped like a shot from under him, leaving
him to come down on his own wings. A handful of feathers, torn out by
his claws, hovered slowly down after them.

It was all the work of an instant before I lost them among the trees
far below. And when I found them again with my glass, the eaglet was
in the top of a great pine, and the mother was feeding him.

And then, standing there alone in the great wilderness, it flashed
upon me for the first time just what the wise old prophet meant;
though he wrote long ago, in a distant land, and another than Cloud
Wings had taught her little ones, all unconscious of the kindly eyes
that watched out of a thicket: "As the eagle stirreth up her nest,
fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them,
beareth them on her wings,--so the Lord."

VII. UPWEEKIS THE SHADOW.

[Illustration: Upweekis]

"Long 'go, O long time 'go," so says Simmo the Indian, Upweekis the
lynx came to Clote Scarpe one day with a complaint. "See," he said,
"you are good to everybody but me. Pekquam the fisher is cunning and
patient; he can catch what he will. Lhoks the panther is str