flared up like a powder-flash. Instantly he sensed
the nearness of an unknown and appalling danger.

There was sound about them now--movement in the trees, ghostly tremours
in the air, and the crackling, metallic SNAP--SNAP--SNAP over their
heads. Again Miki saw the great shadow come and go. It was followed by
a second, and a third, until the vault under the trees seemed filled
with shadows; and with each shadow came nearer that grating menace of
powerfully beaked jaws. Like the wolf and the fox he cringed down,
hugging the earth. But it was no longer with the whimpering fear of the
pup. His muscles were drawn tight, and with a snarl he bared his fangs
when one of the owls swooped so low that he felt the beat of its wings.
Neewa responded with a sniff that a little later in his life would have
been the defiant WHOOF of his mother. Bear-like he was standing up. And
it was upon him that one of the shadows descended--a monstrous
feathered bolt straight out of darkness.

Six feet away Miki's blazing eyes saw his comrade smothered under a
gray mass, and for a moment or two he was held appalled and lifeless by
the thunderous beat of the gargantuan wings. No sound came from Neewa.
Flung on his back, he was digging his claws into feathers so thick and
soft that they seemed to have no heart or flesh. He felt upon him the
presence of the Thing that was death. The beat of the wings was like
the beat of clubs: they drove the breath out of his body, they blinded
his senses, yet he continued to tear fiercely with his claws into a
fleshless breast.

In his first savage swoop Oohoomisew, whose great wings measured five
feet from tip to tip, had missed his death-grip by the fraction of an
inch. His powerful talons that would have buried themselves like knives
in Neewa's vitals closed too soon, and were filled with the cub's thick
hair and loose hide. Now he was beating his prey down with his wings
until the right moment came for him to finish the killing with the
terrific stabbing of his beak. Half a minute of that and Neewa's face
would be torn into pieces.

It was the fact that Neewa made no sound, that no cry came from him,
that brought Miki to his feet with his lips drawn back and a snarl in
his throat. All at once fear went out of him and in its place came a
wild and almost joyous exultation. He recognized their enemy--A BIRD.
To him birds were a prey, and not a menace. A dozen times in their
journey down from the Upper Country