Chapter IX: Bob Buckham Takes a Hand

Ruth's low cry was involuntary. She did not mean to frighten the little Corner House girls; but they saw and understood as well as the older spectators. Tess and Dot clung together and Dot began to whimper.

"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.

"Pap! Pap!" screeched the girl at last. "He's goin' to git me!"

At that shrill and awful cry the man flung away his gun and leaped the rail fence into the open field. What he thought he might do with his bare hands against the talons and armed beak of the bird of prey, it would be impossible to say. But whatever fault might be found with Lycurgus Billet, he was no coward.

Bare-handed, hatless, and as white as paper, the man ran toward his little girl. The shadow of the swooping eagle covered them both.

Then it was that Tess Kenway awoke from her trance. She shrieked, suddenly: "Tom! Tom Jonah! Do, _do_ catch it! Tom Jonah! _Sic him, boy!_"

The growling dog needed no second urging. He flung himself through the fence and dashed across the intervening space. At the moment the eagle dropped with spread talons, the big dog leaped.

Tom Jonah's teeth gained a grip upon the bird's leg. The eagle screamed with pain and rage. Its wings beat the air mightily, and it rose several feet from the ground, carrying Tom Jonah with it!

Lycurgus leaped in and seized Sue. With her clasped close to his chest he ran for the shelter of the woods.

But the Corner House girls and Neale O'Neil, with excited cries, followed in the wake of the lumbering eagle. It plowed across the field, rising and falling with alternate strokes of its wings. Tom Jonah seemed in a very precarious situation, indeed.

The old dog had no idea of letting go his hold, however. When once his jaws were clamped upon an enemy, he was there to stay. Tess was wildly excited. Dot was crying frankly. Agnes called encouragement to Tom Jonah. Ruth and Neale were as anxious as the others for the safety of the old dog, but they saved their breath. All ran as hard as they could run after the eagle and Tom Jonah.

For, scream and beat his wings as he might, the bird could not dislodge the dog. Half the time Tom Jonah was on the ground, and when he felt the earth he dragged back and tore at his feathered antagonist with an obstinacy remarkable.

The eagle could not thrash Tom Jonah with his wings to any purpose; nor could he fix his talons in the dog, or spear him with his beak, while they both were in the air. As the huge bird sprang up the dog bounced into the air, too; but only for a moment or two at a time. The bird was growing weaker.

Finally the eagle changed its tactics, and for a moment the two antagonists whirled over and over on the ground. How the feathers flew! In some way the bird's talons found the dog's flesh.

It was then, when reckless Neale was trying to find a stone or club, that a hoarse voice was heard shouting:

"Get away! stand back! I'm going to shoot that critter!"

"Oh!" shrieked Tess Kenway, not at all the timid and mild little girl she usually was. "Oh! don't you dare shoot Tom Jonah!"

There sounded the heavy explosion of a gun. The eagle screamed no more. Its great wings relaxed and it tumbled to the earth. Tom Jonah sprang away from the thrashing bird, which died hard. The man who had shot it strode in from the other side of the field.

It was not Lycurgus Billet. It was an oldish man, with a big, bushy head of hair and whiskers. He carried his smoking gun in the hollow of his arm.

"By cracky! I made a good shot that time, for a fact!" this stranger declared.

But he was not a stranger to, at least, one of the picnic party. Neale O'Neil cried out: "Oh, Mr. Buckham, that was a fine shot! And just in the nick of time."

Agnes almost fell over at this exclamation of her boy friend. She clung to Neale's jacket sleeve, whispering:

"Oh, dear me! Let's not speak to him! Come, Neale! let's run. I--I am _so_ ashamed about those strawberries."

"Step on that furderinest wing, young feller," said the big, old man to Neale. "He's dead--jest as dead as though he'd laid there a year. He's jest a-kickin' like a old rooster with his head off. Don't _know_ he's dead, that's all. Step on that wing; it'll keep him from thrashin' hisself to pieces," added the farmer, as Neale O'Neil obeyed him.

The girls looked on in awe. Tom Jonah stood by, panting, his tongue out and his plume waving proudly.

"That's a great dog," said Mr. Bob Buckham.

"And---- Why, hullo, son! you used to work for us, didn't you?"

"Yes, Mr. Buckham," replied Neale.

"Ho, ho!" shouted the bushy-headed old man, spying Lycurgus and Sue coming from the edge of the woods. "I beat ye to it that time, Lycurgus. And what was little Sissy doing out there where the old eagle could git his eye on her? I swow! if it hadn't been for the dog, mebbe the eagle would ha' pecked her some--eh?"

"The eagle would have carried her off--the poor little thing," said Ruth, indignantly.

"No!" exclaimed Mr. Buckham.

"I believe it would, sir," Neale said.

"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?"

"But ye didn't."

"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.

"Come on, Pap!" said Sue, bruskly. "Let's go home. These folks don't want us here."

"Lazy, shiftless, inconsequential critter," growled Bob Buckham, coming back to the dead eagle, as Lycurgus and his daughter moved slowly away across the field.

But then the old man's face cleared up quickly, though he sighed as he spoke.

"That only goes to show ye! Some folks never have no chick nor child and others has got 'em so plentiful that they kin afford ter use 'em for eagle bait."

His lips took a humorous twist at the corners, his eyes sparkled, and altogether his bewhiskered countenance took on a very pleasant expression. The Corner House girls--at least, Ruth and Tess and Dorothy--began to like the old farmer right away.

"Got to take that critter home," declared Mr. Bob Buckham, as enthusiastic as a boy over his good luck. "Don't know how I come to lug my old gun along to-day when I started down this way. I never amounted to much as a hunter before. Always have left that to fellers like Lycurgus."

"It was very fortunate for that poor little Sue that you had your rifle," Ruth said warmly.

"Oh, no, ma'am," returned Mr. Buckham. "It was that dog of yourn saved little Sissy. But I reckon I saved the dog."

"And we're awfully much obliged to you for _that_, sir," spoke up Tess. "Aren't we, Dot?"

"Oh, yes!" agreed the smallest Corner House girl. "I thought poor Tom Jonah was going to be carried right up in the air, and that the aigrets would eat him!"

"The _what_ would eat him?" demanded the farmer, paying close attention to what the little girls said, but puzzled enough at Dot's "association of ideas."

Tess explained. "She means the young eagles. She expects the nest is full of hungry little eagles. It would have been dreadful for Tom Jonah to have been carried off just like a lamb. I've seen a picture of an eagle carrying away a lamb in his claws."

"And many a one I reckon this big critter has stole," agreed the farmer. "Right out of my own flock, perhaps. But your dog was too big a load for him."

"Now, son," he added, briskly to Neale, "you give me a h'ist with the bird. I'm going to take him home across my shoulders. Don't dare leave him here for fear some varmint will git him. I'll send the carcass right to town and have it stuffed." "Goodness!" murmured the startled Tess. "You don't _eat_ eagles, do you, sir?"

"Ho, ho!" laughed the farmer. "No-sir-ree-sir! I mean we'll have the skin stuffed. When Mr. Eagle is mounted, you'll see him looking down from the top of that old corner cupboard of mine in the sittin' room--you remember it, Neale?"

"Yes, sir," said Neale, as he helped lift the heavy bird to the farmer's shoulders.

"What are you and these young ladies doin' around here to-day, Neale?" asked Mr. Buckham.

Neale told him. "Got a team, have you?" said the farmer. "Then drive right around to the house. You know the way, boy. I wanter git better acquainted with these little gals," and he smiled broadly upon Tess and Dot.

Ruth was doubtful. Agnes shook her head behind the old man's back and pouted "No!"

"I see that dog's ear is torn," went on Mr. Buckham. "I wanter doctor it a bit. These eagle's talons may be pizen as nightshade."

So Ruth politely thanked Mr. Bob Buckham and said they would drive to his house. So near was the farmhouse, indeed, that Tess and Dot begged to walk with the farmer and so be assured that Tom Jonah should have "medical attention" immediately. Of course, the old dog would not leave the children to go with the strange man alone.

"We can open the gates, too, for Mr. Buckham," said Tess.

"Run along, then, children," the eldest sister said. "We will soon drive over with the chestnuts." Then she added rather sharply, but under her breath, to Agnes: "I don't see what your objection is to going to Mr. Buckham's house. I think he is a real nice old man."

"Oh, I know he is," wailed her sister. "But you never stole his berries!"

"Aggie's conscience is troubling her," chuckled Neale O'Neil. "But don't you fret, Aggie. Old Bob Buckham won't know that _you_ were one of the raiders last May."

"Of course he will. When he knows my name. Didn't he send my name to Mr. Marks with the others?"

"Did he?" returned Neale. "I wonder!"