Chigwooltz, unlike many of my pets, was not in the least dependent on my bounty.  Indeed, he was a remarkable hunter on his own account, and what he took from me he took as hospitality, not charity.  One morning he came to me with the tail of a small trout sticking out of his mouth.  The rest of the fish was below, being digested.  Another day, towards twilight, I saw him resting on the lily pads, looking very full, with a suspicious-looking object curling out over his under lip.  I wiggled my finger in the water, and he came from pure sociability, for he was beyond eating any more.  The suspicious-looking object proved to be a bird’s foot, and beside it was a pointed wing tip.  That was too much for my curiosity.  I opened his mouth and pulled out the bird with some difficulty, for Chigwooltz had been engaged some time in the act of swallowing his game and had it well down.  It proved to be a full-grown male swallow, without a mark anywhere to show how he had come by his death.  Chigwooltz looked at me reproachfully, but swallowed his game promptly the moment I had finished examining it.

There was small doubt in my mind that he had caught his bird fairly, by a quick spring as the swallow touched the water almost at his nose, near one of his numerous lurking places.  Still it puzzled me a good deal till one early morning, when I saw him in broad daylight do a much more difficult thing than snapping up a swallow.

I was coming down the game path to the shore when a bird, a tree sparrow I thought, flew to the ground just ahead of me, and hopped to the water to drink.  I watched him a moment curiously, then with intense interest as I saw a ripple steal out of the lily pads towards him.  The ripple was Chigwooltz.

The sparrow had finished drinking and was absorbed in a morning bath.  Chigwooltz stole nearer and nearer, sinking himself till only his eyes showed above water.  The ripple that flowed away on either side was gentle as that of a floating leaf.  Then, just as the bird had sipped and lifted its head for a last swallow, Chigwooltz hurled himself out of water.  One snap of his big mouth, and the sparrow was done for.

An hour later, when I came down to my canoe, he was sitting low on the lily pads, winking sleepily now and then, with eight little sparrow’s toes curling over the rim of his under lip, like a hornpout’s whiskers.

VI.  CLOUD WINGS THE EAGLE.

[Illustration:  Old Whitehead]

“Here he is again! here’s Old Whitehead, robbing the fish-hawk.”