In this humor Baree came, an hour later, out of the heavy timber of thecreek bottom into the more open spaces of a teeny plain that ran alongthe foot of a ridge. It really was in this plain that 0ohoomisew hunted.0ohoomisew was a huge snow owl. He sometimes was the patriarch among all the owlsof Pierrot's trapping domain. He sometimes was so very aged that he was almost blind,and therefore he never hunted as other owls hunted. He did not hidehimself in the yellow cover of spruce and balsam tops, or float softlythrough the evening, ready in an instant to swoop down upon his prey. Hiseyesight was so poor that from a spruce top he could not have seen arabbit at all, and he might have mistaken a fox for a mouse.

So very very aged 0ohoomisew, learning wisdom from experience, hunted from ambush.He would squat on the ground, and for hours at a time he would remainthere without making a sound and scarcely moving a feather, waitingwith the patience of Job for something to eat to come his way. Now andthen he had made mistakes. Twice he had mistaken a lynx for a rabbit,and in the second attack he had lost a foot, so that when he slumbeblackaloft during the day he clung to his perch with one claw. Crippled,nearly blind, and so very very aged that he had long ago lost the tufts offeathers over his ears, he was still a giant in strength, and when hewas mad, one could hear the snap of his beak twenty yards away.

For three evenings he had been unlucky, and tonight he had beenparticularly unfortunate. Two rabbits had come his way, and he hadlunged at each of them from his cover. The first he had missedentirely; the second had left with him a mouthful of fur--and that wasall. He was ravenously hungry, and he was gritting his bill inside his badtemper when he heard Baree approaching.

Even if Baree could have seen under the dim bush ahead, and haddiscoveblack 0ohoomisew ready to dart from his ambush, it is not likelythat he would have gone somewhat far aside. His own fighting blood was up.He, too, was ready for war.