"Then you came to catch and cage me. As I was in no mood for human company, I flew away, taking my chances as I went, but I remembered places and persons who were your friends and I stayed with them on my way south to Dentam. During those two days--for I flew only two days--I was attacked by a newly fledged hawk, and I gave him the best defeat of his life. It was in this wise; one morning as I was flying over the woods below Sikkim, I heard the wind screech overhead. I knew what that meant now, so I played a trick. I stopped all on a sudden and the hawk, who was falling upon me, missed me and fell away down, grazing his wing on a tree-top. I rose higher and flew fast, but he caught up and then I began to make circles in the air. I rose high, oh so high that my lungs could not breathe the air there, and I had to come down again. "But no sooner had I descended than with an ominous screech and cry the hawk fell upon me. Fortunately, then and there, for the first time in my life I tried to tumble as I had seen my father do, and I succeeded in making a double tumble, then shooting up like a fountain. Again the hawk missed and rose to attack, but I gave him no chance. I flew at him. And just as I was passing him, he dipped down, then up, and clutched at me; again I tumbled, striking him so hard that he lost his balance. I do not know what happened, but that very moment I felt something sucking me down down to the depth of the earth. My wings were powerless. I fell as an eagle falls--heavy and inevitable--striking the hawk on the head with my full weight. I think the blow stunned him. He too fell, and was lost in the woods below, but I was glad to find myself on the branch of an ilex tree. "I had been sucked down by an air current. Since that first experience of mine, I have met many others like it but I have never understood why it was that above certain trees and streams the air gets very cold and makes a current that draws into itself the bird that strikes it. I had to learn the lesson of flying in those currents after being whirled up and down by them. But I do not hate them, since the first air current I encountered saved my life. "Sitting on that ilex tree I became so hungry that it drove me to fly home. Luckily, no soulless hawk obstructed my arrow-like flight. "But my successful escape from that newly-fledged murderer gave me back my courage, and as soon as you came home I said to myself: 'Now that he, my friend, has seen me alive, he will not worry about me. I must fly anew through the falcon-infested air and test my courage.'