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208
Animal Heroes
·
Ernest Thompson Seton
77
But
she
led
to
the
river.
After
all
had
drunk
their
fill
they
lay
down
on
the
nearest
bank
till
late
afternoon.
Then
their
unheard
dinner-gong
aroused
them,
and
started
them
on
the
backward
march
to
where
the
richest
pastures
grew.
One
or
two
small
birds
had
picked
at
the
scraps
of
meat,
some
blue-bottle
flies
buzzed
about,
but
the
sinking
sun
saw
the
sandy
mask
untouched.
A
brown
Marsh
Hawk
came
skimming
over
the
river
flat
as
the
sun
began
his
color
play.
Blackbirds
dashed
into
thickets,
and
easily
avoided
his
clumsy
pounce.
It
was
too
early
for
the
Mice,
but,
as
he
skimmed
the
ground,
his
keen
eye
caught
the
flutter
of
feathers
by
the
trap
and
turned
his
flight.
The
feathers
in
their
uninteresting
emptiness
were
exposed
before
he
was
near,
but
now
he
saw
the
scraps
of
meat.
Guileless
of
cunning,
he
alighted
and
was
devouring
a
second
lump
when--clank--the
dust
was
flirted
high
and
the
Marsh
Hawk
was
held
by
his
toes,
struggling
vainly
in
the
jaws
of
a
powerful
wolf-trap.
He
was
not
much
hurt.
His
ample
wings
winnowed
from
time
to
time,
in
efforts
to
be
free,
but
he
was
helpless,
even
as
a
Sparrow
might
be
in
a
rat-trap,
and
when
the
sun
had
played
his
fierce
chromatic
scale,
his
swan-song
sung,
and
died
as
he
dies
only
in
the
blazing
west,
and
the
shades
had
fallen
on
the
melodramatic
scene
of
the
Mouse
in
the
elephant-trap,
there
was
a
deep,
rich
sound
on
the
high
flat
butte,
answered
by
another,
neither
very
long,
neither
repeated,
and
both
instinctive
rather
than
necessary.
One
was
the
muster-call
of
an
ordinary
Wolf,
the
other
the
answer
of
a
very
big
male,
not
a
pair
in
this
case,
but
mother
and
son--Yellow
Wolf
and
Duskymane.
They
came
trotting
together
down
the
Buffalo
trail.
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