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Updated: May 7, 2025
The truth was soon made clear proving the contrary to be the case: for as the bearcoot continued to flap its wings, or rather, flutter them in a violent irregular motion, it became evident that instead of desiring to remain by the fallen body of its victim, it was doing its very best to get away from it!
A gentleman who had traveled among the Kirghese told me he had seen a bearcoot swoop down upon a full grown deer and kill him in a few minutes. Sometimes when a pack of wolves has killed and begun eating a deer, the feast will be interrupted by a pair of bearcoots. Two birds will attack a dozen wolves, and either kill or drive them away. Barnaool is quite near the Kirghese steppes.
Before proceeding to work, however, it was deemed prudent to secure against a hungry day by curing the flesh of the brace of ibex. The dead bearcoot was to be eaten while fresh, and needed no curing. And so indeed it was eaten the bird of Jove furnishing them with a dinner, as that of Juno had given them a breakfast!
Caspar felt satisfied of this fact; nor did either of the others question its truth but what then? "What," inquired Karl, "would be the use of a rope of fifty yards, though the eagle might carry it up to the moon? Even at the lowest part of the cliffs should the bearcoot take one end over, the other would be fifty yards above our heads?" "Not a yard, brother not a foot.
They had foreseen this difficulty from the very first; and the ingenuity of Karl had at once provided a remedy for it as will be seen in the sequel. The second question that presented itself was: admitting that the bearcoot might bear up a rope stout enough for the purpose, whether there would be any possibility of getting this rope stayed at the top?
"What do you think of it, shikaree?" inquired Karl, speaking in a serious tone. The reply of Ossaroo did not bespeak any very sanguine hope on his part. Still he was ready to counsel a trial of the scheme. They could try it without any great trouble. It would only need to spin some more rope from the hemp of which they had plenty attach it to the leg of the bearcoot, and give the bird its freedom.
It was done in obedience to a request of Karl who, having noticed the abstracted air of his brother, had asked for an explanation. "I've been thinking," said Caspar, "ever since the eagle has escaped us, of another bird I know something about one that might perform the service we want quite as well, if not better, than a bearcoot." "Another bird!" inquired Karl; "of what bird are you speaking?
Thinking that the bearcoot would rise upward into the air, he had not thought of anything else; and as he stood balancing himself on that narrow shelf, he was but ill prepared for what actually came to pass.
Why the bearcoot was thus retaining the ibex in his clutch was not quite so clear: for the animal was evidently dead; and apparently had been so long before reaching the earth. There was something strange about this proceeding on the part of the bird as there had also been in its mode of descent through the last forty or fifty yards of space.
They were of large size, nearly black in colour, and with that peculiar sharpness of outline and sweep of wing that distinguish the true birds of prey. There was no mistaking their kind they were eagles of a species known in the Himalayas and the steppes of Thibet as the "bearcoot."
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