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And Simmo the Indian, who had run down to join me, muttered: "Cheplahgan mad now. Ismaquehs find-um out in a minute." But Ismaquehs knew just when to stop. With a cry of rage he dropped, or rather threw, his fish, hoping it would strike the water and be lost. On the instant the eagle wheeled out of the way and bent his head sharply.
'Sides, he kin feel danger. Das why he build nest way off, long ways, O don' know where." This last with a wave of his arm to include the universe. Cheplahgan, Old Cloud Wings, he proudly called the bird that had defied him in a summer's hunting.
Occasionally they cried out a sharp warning as Cheplahgan came plunging down out of the blue, over the head of Ismaques; but they seemed to know perfectly how the unequal contest must end, and they always had a deal of jabber among themselves over it, the meaning of which I could never make out. As for myself, I am sure that Deedeeaskh could never make up his mind what to think of me.
Now he was closer to me than ever, and the fear was vanishing. But so also was the fierceness. From the foot of the tree the crevice in which it grew led upwards to the right, then doubled back to the ledge above the nest, upon which Cheplahgan was standing when I discovered him.
And Mooween the bear sleeps all winter, when game is scarce, and in summer eats everything, roots and mice and berries and dead fish and meat and honey and red ants. So he is always full and happy. But my eyes are no good; they are bright, like Cheplahgan the eagle's, yet they cannot see anything unless it moves; for you have made every creature that hides just like the place he hides in.
When I went there, early next morning, it was Cheplahgan himself who showed me where his nest was. I was hunting along the foot of the cliff when, glancing back towards the lake, I saw him coming far away, and hid in the underbrush. He passed very near, and following, I saw him standing on a ledge near the top of the cliff.
I sat perfectly still, which is the only way to reassure a wild creature; and soon I thought Cheplahgan had lost his fear in his anxiety for the little ones. But the moment I rose to go he was in the air again, circling restlessly above my head with his mate, the same wild fierceness in his eyes as he looked down.
There was only one enemy that ever seriously troubled the fishhawks; and he did it in as decent a sort of way as was possible under the circumstances. That was Cheplahgan the eagle.
Ismaques, being wise, would drop his fish, and the eagle would swoop down after it, often seizing it ere it reached the water. But he never injured the fishhawks, and he never disturbed the nest. So they got along well enough together. Cheplahgan had a bite of fish now and then in his own high-handed way; and honest Ismaques, who never went long hungry, made the best of a bad situation.
There he stood, at arm's length, turning his head uneasily, the light glinting on his white crest, the fierce, untamed flash in his bright eye. Never before had he seemed so big, so strong, so splendid; my heart jumped at the thought of him as our national emblem. I am glad still to have seen that emblem once, and felt the thrill of it. But I had little time to think, for Cheplahgan was restless.
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