Part 16 (1/2)

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 s.p.a.ce. 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 hoa.r.s.e 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 thras.h.i.+ng 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 thras.h.i.+n'

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.