At first I had hunted him like any other savage; partly, of course, to get his skin for the curator; partly, perhaps, to save the settler’s lambs over on the Madawaska; but chiefly just to kill him, to exult in his death flaps, and to rid the woods of a cruel tyrant.  Gradually, however, a change came over me as I hunted; I sought him less and less for his skin and his life, and more and more for himself, to know all about him.  I used to watch him by the hour from my camp on the big lake, sailing quietly over Caribou Point, after he had eaten with his little ones, and was disposed to let Ismaquehs go on with his fishing in peace.  He would set his great wings to the breeze and sit like a kite in the wind, mounting steadily in an immense spiral, up and up, without the shadow of effort, till the eye grew dizzy in following.  And I loved to watch him, so strong, so free, so sure of himself—­round and round, up and ever up, without hurry, without exertion; and every turn found the heavens nearer and the earth spread wider below.  Now head and tail gleam silver white in the sunshine now he hangs motionless, a cross of jet that a lady might wear at her throat, against the clear, unfathomable blue of the June heavens—­there! he is lost in the blue, so high that I cannot see any more.  But even as I turn away he plunges down into vision again, dropping with folded wings straight down like a plummet, faster and faster, larger and larger, through a terrifying rush of air, till I spring to my feet and catch the breath, as if I myself were falling.  And just before he dashes himself to pieces he turns in the air, head downward, and half spreads his wings, and goes shooting, slanting down towards the lake, then up in a great curve to the tree tops, where he can watch better what Kakagos, the rare woods-raven, is doing, and what game he is hunting.  For that is what Cheplahgan came down in such a hurry to find out about.

Again he would come in the early morning; sweeping up river as if he had already been a long day’s journey, with the air of far-away and far-to-go in his onward rush.  And if I were at the trout pools, and very still, I would hear the strong silken rustle of his wings as he passed.  At midday I would see him poised over the highest mountain-top northward, at an enormous altitude, where the imagination itself could not follow the splendid sweep of his vision; and at evening he would cross the lake, moving westward into the sunset on tireless pinions—­always strong, noble, magnificent in his power and loneliness, a perfect emblem of the great lonely magnificent wilderness.

One day as I watched him, it swept over me suddenly that forest and river would be incomplete without him.  The thought of this came back to me, and spared him to the wilderness, on the last occasion when I went hunting for his life.