Tom and Hervey stood upon a ledge of rock just outside the area of a great elm tree, and as they looked down and afar off, Black Lake seemed a mere puddle with toy cabins near it.

“I bet there are wild animals up there,” Hervey said.

“Here’s one of them now,” commented Tom, pointing upward.

High above them in the dusk and with a background of golden-edged clouds, which gave the sun’s last parting message to the earth, a great bird hovered motionless.  It seemed to hang in air as if by a thread.  Then it descended with a wide, circling swoop.  In less than ten seconds, as it seemed to Hervey, its body and great wings, and even its curved, cruel beak, were plainly visible circling a few yards above the tree.  It seemed like a journey from the heavens to the earth, all in an instant.

“Watch him, watch him,” Hervey whispered.

But Tom was not watching him at all.  He knew what that savage descent meant and he was looking for its cause.  Stealthily, with no more sound than that of a gliding canoe, he stole to the trunk of the tree and looked about with quick, short, scrutinizing glances, away up among its branches.

Then he placed his finger to his lips, warning Hervey to silence, and beckoned him into the darker shadow under the great tree.

“Did you see anything beside the bird?” he whispered.

“No,” said Hervey.  “Why?  What is it?”

“Shh,” Tom said; “look up—­shh——­”

It was the most fateful moment of all Hervey Willetts’ scout career, and he did not know it.

CHAPTER VII

THE STREAK OF RED

“Look up there,” Tom said; “out near the end of the third branch.  See?  The little codger beat him to it.”

Looking up, Hervey saw amid the thicker foliage, far removed from the stately trunk, something hanging from a leaf-covered branch.  Even as he looked at it, it seemed to be swaying as if from a recent jolt.  At first glimpse he thought it was a bat hanging there.

“See it?” Tom said, pointing up.  “You can see it by the little streak of red.  I think the little codgers head is poking out.  Some scare she had.”

Then all in an instant Hervey knew.  It seemed incredible that the great bird, hovering at that dizzy height, could have seen the little songster of the woods which even he and Tom had failed to see.  And the thought of that smaller bird reaching its home just in time, and poking its head out of the opening to see if all was well, went to Hervey’s heart and stirred a sudden anger within him.

“I didn’t know they could see all that distance,” he said.

“Well, that’s one thing you’ve learned that you didn’t know before,” Tom said in his matter-of-fact way.

Scarcely had he spoken the words when the foliage above shook and there was a loud rustling and crackling of branches, while many leaves and twigs fell to the ground.