Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1905-08-04
THE SKY TIGER.
me Attic ooshawk and His Taking Of
Other 5irds-Enormous Speed He Meets
With Speed More Enormous.

With Speed More Enormous.
! lCharles G. ID. Roberts, in the Metro
politan Magazine.l
From all the lonely salt-fiats and tide
washed, reedy shores of the wide estu-
airy, the flocks of the sea duck had flown
south. After feeding for days together
| amicably, golden-eye and red-head.
broad-bill and dipper, all hobnobbing and
bobbing and guttering in company, with
out regard to difference of kin, they
had at last assorted themselves into
hocks Of like species and wing power.
and gone off in strong flying wedges to
seek milder tides and softer skies.
nevertheless, though the marshy levels
were now stiffened with frost, and ice
tringes fingered thin and brittle behind
each retreating tide, and white fiurries OF
snow went drifting over the vast, windy
| spaces of wave and plain some bold, per-
slstent waits of life chung to these bleak
| solitudes. Here and there a straggler from
the flocks, or a belated arrival from far
ther north, fed solitary and seemed suffi-
| cient to himself while here and there a
few hardy coots, reveling in the loneliness
and in the forbiding harshness of the
season, swan and dived among the low.
leaden-colored waves.
Across ten level miles of naked marsh
land another estuary made in from the
sea. On the shore of this estuary, so
was impossible to distinguish at high tide
just where the water ended and the solid
land began, a solitary surf duck dabbled
among the gray, half-frozen grasses OF
dull black all over, save for a patch Of
clear white on its head and another on
the back of its neck, he made a sharp
conspicuous spot against the pallid color
ing of the marshes. For all his loneliness
he seemed to be enjoying himself very
well, active and engrossed, and to all APP
pearances forgetful of the departed fiocks
suddenly, however, he stopped feeding
and sat with head erect and watchful eyes,
rising and falling gently with the pulse
Of the sedge checked flood Either some
unusual sight or sound had disturbed him,
or some drift Of memory had stirred his
restessness. For several minutes he float
ed, forgetful of the savory shelled and
squirming creatures which his discrimin-
ating bill had been gathering from among
the oozy sedge-roots. Then. with an
abrupt squawk, he tapped noisily along
the surface of the water rose into the air
and few straight inland, mounting as he
went to height far above gunshot
The flight of the lonely drake was to-
wards the shore of the other estuary, ten
miles southwark, where in all likelihood he
had some hope of finding the companion
ship of his kin, II not a better feeding
ground. Though his body was very heavy
and massive and his wings ridiculously
short for the bulk they had to sustain, he
flew with tremendous speed and as
straight as a bullet from a rife. His
wings. however small, were nightly
muscled and as tough as steel springs, and
they beat the air with such lightning
strokes that the sturdy body, head and
neck and legs and feet outstretched in a
rigid line, was hurled through the air at
a speed Of something like a hundred miles
an hour As he flew, the fiurries of snow
gathered into squall of whirling flakes.
almost obscuring the waste of marshland
that rushed past beneath his flight, and
shutting him off alone in the upper heights
of sky.
Alone indeed he imagined himself while
the cold air and the streaming snowflakes
whistled past his flight. But keen as
were his eyes, other eyes keener than his
had marked him from a loftier height,
where the air was clear above the storm
strata. great Arctic goshawk, driven
by some unknown within to follow the
edge OF winter southwark, was sailing on
wide wings through the high, familiar
cold. When he saw the black drake far
below him, shooting through the snow
flakes like missile. his fierce eyes famed
and narrowed. his wings gave one mighty
peat and then half closed, and he dropped
into the cloudy mirk of the storm belt
The drake was now about a hundred
yards ahead of the great hawk, and flying
at perhaps ninety miles an hour under
the mere impulse of his desire to reach
the other estuary. When he caught sight
OF the white terror pursuing him, his
sturdy little wings doubled the rapidity
of their stroke, till he shot forward at a
rate OF, perhaps two miles a minute his
wedge-shaped body and hard oiled plu-
mage offering small resistance to the air
even at that enormous speed. His only
chance Of escape. as he we'll knew, was to
reach the water and plunge beneath it.
COIll6 no oh
was behind him. Straight ahead lay his
only hope. There, not more than two or
three minutes distant lay his secure
refuge. He could see the leaden gray ex-
panse, touched by a CLEAN of cold and
lonely sunlight which had pierced the
obscurity Of the squall. Could he reach
It? II he could, he would drop into the
slow wave, dive to the bottom, and hold
to the roots of the swaying weeds till the
terror had gone by.
hundred yards behind came the hawk,
moving like a dreadful ghost through the
swirl and glimmer of the snow. His plu-
mage was white, but penciled with
shadowy markings of pale brown. His
narrowed eyes, fixed upon the fugitive,
were fiercely bright and hard like glass.
His hooked beak, his fiat head, his strong
thick, smoothly modelled neck, were OUT
stretched in a rigid line like those OF the
drake.
The long, spectral wings of the great
hawk beat the air. but not with haste and
violence like those of the fleeing quarry.
Swift as his wing-beats were, there was
surging movement about them, an ire
sistable thrust, which made them seem
slow and gave their working an air of alb
solute ease. For all this ease, however,
he was flying faster than the fugitive.
Slowly, yard by yard, he crept up, the
distance from his victim grew narrower.
The brakes wings whistled upon the wind,
a strange shrill note, as of terror and de-
spair. But the wings of the pursuing de-
stroyer were as noiseless as sleep. He
seemed less bird than spirit of DOOM
the embodiment OF the implacable Arctic
cold.
The astounding speed at which the two
were rushing through the sky on this race
Of life and death brought the CLEAN of the
estuary water hurrying up from the hori-
ION to meet them. The terrible seconds
passed. The water was not half a mile
ahead. The line of the drakes flight be-
gan to slope toward EARTH A few
moments more, and a sudden splash in the
tide would proclaim that the fugitive was
safe in refuge where the destroyer could
not follow. But the noiseless wings We're
now just behind him-just behind and
above.
At this moment the fugitive opened his
beak for one despairing squawk, his ac-
knowledgement that the game of life was
lost. The next instant the hawks white
NT,aNw