With the pain the present returned, but the past remained.
All his youth, all his manhood flashed before him. The long, bloody,
merciless years faced him, and his crimes crushed upon him with
awful might.
Suddenly a rushing sound startled him. He saw a great bird swoop
down and graze the tree tops. Another followed, and another, and
then a flock of them. He saw their gray, spotted breasts and hooked
beaks.
"Buzzards," he muttered, darkly eyeing the dead savages. The carrion
birds were swooping to their feast.
"By God! He's nailed me fast for buzzards!" he screamed in sudden,
awful frenzy. "Nailed fast! Ah-h! Ah-h! Ah-h! Eaten alive by
buzzards! Ah-h! Ah-h! Ah-h!"
He shrieked until his voice failed, and then he gasped.
Again the buzzards swooped overhead, this time brushing the leaves.
One, a great grizzled bird, settled upon a limb of the giant oak,
and stretched its long neck. Another alighted beside him. Others
sailed round and round the dead tree top.
The leader arched his wings, and with a dive swooped into the glade.
He alighted near Deering's dead body. He was a dark, uncanny bird,
with long, scraggy, bare neck, a wreath of white, grizzled feathers,
a cruel, hooked beak, and cold eyes.
The carrion bird looked around the glade, and put a great claw on
the dead man's breast.
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