to face hissed a challenge.  Here and these a big bird spread its great wings tentatively, and folded them again with distinct reluctance.  The cycle was all but complete.  The instinct that in the beginning had bid them south, that had for this brief time sent them to earth, was calling again.  In sympathy the restless head of the sentinel went still.  Another minute, another second even, perhaps, and they would be gone.  Through the filmy screen the stalker saw it all, read the meaning.  He had ere this drawn unbelievably near.  Barely the width of a narrow street separated him from the main flock—­less than the breadth of a goodly sized room the motionless sentinel.  It was the moment for action.

And action followed.  Like a mighty spring the slim muscular body contracted in its length.  Toes and fingers dug into the earth like a sprinter awaiting the starting pistol.  He drew a long breath.  Then of a sudden, straight over the now useless blind, unexpected, startling as a thunderclap out of a cloudless sky, directly toward the nearest bird bounded a tall brown figure, silent as a phantom.  For a second the entire flock stared in dumb paralytic surprise; then following there came a note of terror from eight and twenty throats that rose as one voice, that over the now silent prairie could have been heard for miles.  It was the signal for action, for escape, and, terror-mad, they broke into motion.  But a flock of great Canada geese cannot, like quail, spring directly a-wing.  They must first gather momentum.  This they attempted to gain—­in its accomplishment all but one succeeded.  That one, the leader, the sentinel, was too near.  Almost before that first note of terror had left his throat the man was upon him.  Ere he could rise two relentless hands had fastened upon his beating wings and held him prisoner.  Hissing, struggling, he put up the best fight he could; but it was useless.  “Honk! honk! honk! honk! honk! honk!” shrilled the flock now safe in the air.  “Honk! honk! honk!” as with wings and feet they climbed into the sky.  “Honk! honk! honk!” softer and softer.  “Honk! honk! honk!” for the last time, faint as an echo; and they were gone.  Behind them the human and the wild thing his prisoner stood staring at each other alone.

For a long, long time neither moved.  Its first desperate effort to escape past, the bird ceased to struggle, stood passive in its place; passive as the man himself had remained there on the ground a few hours before.  Its long neck swayed here and there continuously, restlessly, and its throat was a-throb; but no muscle of the body stirred.  It had made its fight—­and lost.  For the time being resistance was fatuous, and it accepted the inevitable.  Silent as its captor, it awaited the move of the conqueror.  It would resist again when the move came, resist to the last ounce of its strength; but until then in instinctive wisdom it would husband its energy.