By this time the morning was pretty well gone, and he hesitated whether to go home for dinner, or to spend the afternoon here beneath the cliffs. Finally he determined to ride up the ravine a little further, on the chance of seeing more of this scattered brood, and then, if he did not find any, to go home. Following up the valley a short distance, a grouse rose under Pawnee's feet, and flew up the hillside, alighting among some low pines that grew at the very base of the cliff. Jack thought the bird might have gone into a tree, and clambered up on the chance of getting a shot. When he reached the pines he could not find the bird, and after looking for it a little while, he sat down to rest, and to watch some little striped squirrels that were playing among the rocks just above him. While he sat watching the squirrels, he suddenly heard a rushing sound, so close to his ear that he dodged, and a great hawk, with long tail and sharp pointed wings, darted over one of the squirrels, and in an instant rose in the air with the tiny creature in its talons. It had happened so quickly that Jack hardly realised the squirrel's capture until he saw the hawk rise, and with a few strong strokes of its wings, swing up and alight on a shelf of the cliff, above the tops of the tall pines that grew on the hillside. Here the blue rock was stained white, and Jack made up his mind that the hawk had a nest there. He determined to climb up and see if he could not get to it, and learn what was in it. There might be young birds, and these would make capital pets if they could be tamed. It seemed a long way up to where the hawk sat, and the cliff looked sheer as a wall, but here and there were crevices and places where the water had worn away the rock, and he thought that perhaps he could get up to the nest.