"Oh, don't cry, Dot! Don't cry!" begged Tess.
"That--that awful aigret!" gasped Dot, getting things mixed again, but quite as much frightened as though she were right. "It will bite that little girl."
"No. We'll set Tom Jonah on him!" exclaimed Tess, bravely.
"Hush!" exclaimed Neale, in a low, tense voice. "Lycurgus is going to shoot it."
"Go right on, Sue!" they heard the hunter say to his little daughter, in a voice scarcely above a whisper, but very penetrating. "Walk right out in that there field. I got my eye on you."
"You keep your eye on that ol' eagle, Pap--never mind watchin' me," was the faint reply of little Sue Billet.
"Don't you have no fear," Lycurgus said in his sharp wheeze. "I'm a-gwine to shoot that fow-el. He's my meat."
The eagle raised his wings slowly; they quivered and he stretched his neck around so that he could glare again at the trembling little girl. It was no wonder Sue was frightened, and stumbled, and fell into a bed of nettles, and then--screamed!
"Drat the young 'un!" exclaimed Lycurgus, just as the eagle made an awkward spring into the air.
But the bird did not fly away; instead it swooped around in a circle, displaying great strength and agility in its motion. It's wings spread all of six feet. They beat the air tremendously, and then the bird sailed low, aiming directly for the child just climbing out of the bed of nettles.
It was plain that Lycurgus had not been quite ready for the eagle's swoop. He had to try for the bird, however. The screaming Sue could not extricate herself from the dangerous situation in which her father had placed her. Lycurgus shouldered his gun and pulled the trigger.
He may have had a reputation for never missing his quarry; but his gun missed that time, for sure! Not a feather flew from the great bird. Its pinions beat the air so terribly that poor little Sue was thrown to the ground once more.
Agnes shrieked. The two smaller girls were awestruck. Neale O'Neil fairly groaned. It seemed as though the child must fall a victim to the eagle's beak and claws.
Its huge wings, beating the air, drowned most other sounds. Lycurgus struggled to slip another shell into his old-fashioned rifle. Somehow the mechanism had fouled.