"The eagle would have carried her off--the poor little thing," said Ruth, indignantly.
"And that isn't the worst of it," went on the wrought up Corner House girl.
"What ain't the worst of it, miss?" asked the farmer.
"That poor little thing was sent out there by her father to attract the eagle."
"What?" roared Bob Buckham, his great face turning red with anger and his deep-set eyes flashing. "You mean to tell me he set little Sissy for eagle bait?"
He strode forward to meet Lycurgus Billet, leaving the dead bird behind him. The chagrined hunter smiled a sickly smile as big Bob Buckham approached.
"The old gun went back on me that time--she sure did, Bob," Billet said. "I would ha' got that critter, else. Hullo! what's the matter?"
For the farmer reached out a ham-like hand and seized the wiry Lycurgus by the shoulder, and shook him.
"Hey! what you doin'?" the smaller man repeated.
"I've a mind to shake the liver-lights out'n you, Lycurgus Billet!" declared the farmer. "To send little Sissy out to be eagle bait fer ye! I--I--That's the worst I ever heard of!"
"Say!" sputtered Lycurgus. "What d'ye mean? I 'spected ter shoot the critter, didn't I?"
"Just the same she warn't hurt. Air you, Sue?" demanded the little girl's father.
Sue shook her head. She hadn't got over her scare, however. "My!" she confessed, "I thought he was a-goin' to grab me--I sure did! And he had sech a wicked eye."
"You hear that?" demanded old Bob Buckham, fiercely, and Lycurgus shrank away from the indignant farmer as though he expected to feel the heavy hand again--and to sterner purpose this time.
"You ain't no business with a young'un like Sissy--you ornery pup!" growled the old man in the culprit's ear. "I wish she was mine. You ain't fitten to own little Sissy."
It was evident that the old farmer thought a good deal of the backwoods' child. Lycurgus said no further word. He walked over to the eagle and looked down at it.
"He's a whopper!" he observed, smiling in his weak way at the Corner House girls and Neale O'Neil.
Ruth only nodded coolly. Agnes turned her back on him, while the little girls stared as wonderingly at Lycurgus Billet as they would had he been a creature from another world.
Bob Buckham and little Sissy, as he called her, were having a talk at one side. Something that shone brightly passed from the farmer's hand into the child's grimed palm.