ger than some, but
with the bushes below, the sentinel pines, and here and there a gaunt
old snag--bleached and dead and lifting its arms to the sky. On one of
these dead ones we made out, through the mist, a strange dark bunch
about the size of a barn door and of rather irregular formation.
Gradually nearing, we discovered the bunch to be owls--great horned
owls--a family of them, grouped on the old tree's limbs in solid
formation, oblivious to the rain, to the world, to any thought of
approaching danger.

Now, the great horned owl is legitimate quarry. The case against him is
that he is a bird of prey--a destroyer of smaller birds and an enemy of
hen roosts. Of course if one wanted to go deeply into the ethics of the
matter, one might say that the smaller birds and the chickens are
destroyers, too, of bugs and grasshoppers and things, and that a life is
a life, whether it be a bird or a bumble-bee, or even a fish-worm. But
it's hard to get to the end of such speculations as that. Besides, the
owl was present, and we wanted his skin. Eddie crept close in with his
canoe, and drew a careful bead on the center of the barn door. There
was an angry little spit of powder in the wet, a wavering movement of
the dark, mist-draped bunch, a slow heaving of ghostly pinions and four
silent, feathered phantoms drifted away into the white gloom. But there
was one that did not follow. In vain the dark wings heaved and fell.
Then there came a tottering movement, a leap forward, and
half-fluttering, half-plunging, the heavy body came swishing to the
ground.

Yet unused to the battle as he was, for he was of the younger brood, he
died game. When we reached him he was sitting upright, glaring out of
his great yellow eyes, his talons poised for defense. Even with Eddie's
bottle of new skin in reserve, it was not considered safe to approach
too near. We photographed him as best we could, and then a shot at close
range closed his brief career.

I examined the owl with considerable interest. In the first place I had
never seen one of this noble species before, and this was a beautiful
specimen. Also, his flesh, being that of a young bird, did not appeal to
warrant the expression tough as a boiled owl, which the others
remembered almost in a chorus when I referred to our agreement
concerning the food test of such game as we brought down. I don't think
any of us wanted to eat that owl. I know I didn't, but I had weakened
once--on the porcup