THE EAGLE’S NEST
A fortnight went by, and “the Tenderfeet,” as Dick called the newer
campers, were growing used to camp ways which had seemed queer and
hard to some of them at first. In all that time Anne received no
letter from her father. But one day Tante did. She did not tell Anne
this, but put the letter in her apron pocket and carried it to her
favorite spot in the woods to read by herself.
The letter was dated from a place in Canada, and was signed by Mr.
Poole. There were some mysterious words among the plain business
matters mentioned in the letter. Mr. Poole was writing about the
money to be paid for Anne’s summer expenses at the camp. “It is a
crisis with me,” he wrote. “You’ll understand before long, I guess.
I’ll be glad if you will keep Anne as long as you can; then I’ll have
to do something, I don’t know what. I can’t write to her, and my wife
is all bound up in our little baby, of course. You can’t expect much
of her. She isn’t very strong, and of course Baby has first claim on
us. That word ‘_claim_’ makes me sick anyway! I’ve got to harden my
heart to everybody. You’ll soon know what I mean.”
“What can the man mean?” thought Tante, fingering this strange
letter. “Harden his heart! I should say it must be hard as granite
already! Poor little Anne. She is worrying because she does not hear
from him. But letters like this don’t make one happy. We must help
her to have as good a time as possible this summer.”
Tante went straight to the Fairy Ring where Anne was making up a
second cot bed, her own being already properly finished. Her eyes
were red. And when Tante appeared in the tent opening Anne hastily
brushed a tear with her khaki sleeve. “I’m making Beverly’s bed,” she
said, trying to appear careless. “She made mine yesterday, without
my asking her. Beverly is very nice.”
“I hear you girls are going for a climb to-day,” said Tante smiling
approval. “It’s a lovely day for it, and the Eagle’s Nest is not very
far.”
“I can climb all right,” said Anne. “But I’ve got letters to write.
Tante, why do you suppose I don’t hear from my father?” she cried
suddenly, showing what the trouble was that made her eyes red and the
tears ready to start.
“There might be many reasons,” said Tante soothingly. “But whatever
they are, you mustn’t worry. You must get all the sunshine you can
out of this golden summer. You had better go with the girls on this
nice trip.”
“Something has happened to Father,” said Anne uneasily. “I have
suspected for some time that things weren’t going right. He seems so
different. It isn’t like him to sell the animals, even Plon and the
old pony.”
“You must be a brave girl,” said Tante, putting her arms around
Anne’s shoulders. “If anything happens, we will all stand by, Anne.
Friends do help when they get together as we try to do at Round
Robin.”
“The girls are all right,” said Anne. “If you say so, I will go with
them. And I should like to see an eagle’s nest.”
“That’s right! I have put up a luncheon for you already,” said Tante.
“I was sure you would go.”
Anne straightened her shoulders and hurried away to get ready for
the climb. Presently she joined the brown group in broad hats and
with business-like knapsacks strapped to their shoulders, who were
gathered at the back of the camp. The girls were going alone this
once. For Hugh and Victor were away for a three-days’ camping trip
in the deep woods, and Dick, excused from studies for that time, was
acting as Camp Protector in their absence.
“Be sure you keep together and follow your leader,” Tante charged
them as she waved good-bye.
“Who is the leader?” asked Anne of Beverly Peyton, who was waiting
for her at the end of the line. “Why, Nelly Sackett, of course. She
knows the way better than anybody.”
“I didn’t know she was going!” said Anne, hanging back. She felt not
unfriendly to Nelly. But she could not get used to the idea of this
freckled country girl as a leader in _her Club_. Anne liked to be a
leader herself, or to choose whom she would follow.
“Tante would not let us go without Nelly,” said Beverly. “None of
the others have been over the trail this season, not even Nancy. But
Tante said we might go if we would be very careful.”
“Of course,” said Anne, reluctantly following in Beverly’s footsteps.
She was ashamed to explain how she felt, and why she hated to be at
the end of the procession that Nelly led.
The eagle’s nest was on the small mountain that lay at the back of
the camp, about two miles distant. The nest was a secret that Captain
Sackett had discovered years before, when he was a little boy. How
long it had been there before his time nobody knew. But every year
two old eagles came to the nest, and used it for a nursery, far
above the sea and beyond the homes of men; shut in by thick woods and
the bold rocks of the mountain. This was just the time when Captain
Sackett had seen a baby eagle there last year; and the Club was eager
to visit the nest now, while the Veterans were away, hoping to have
something to tell them on their return. For it is not many persons
who have seen an eagle on its nest.
It was a wild walk through thick woods with no road; only a narrow
trail made in years past by wood-cutters, and since used by campers
and summer people at long intervals. For Captain Sackett had kept his
secret well, telling only those friends who could be trusted not to
hurt or harry the faithful eagles’ well-hidden nursery.
The trail followed at first the bed of a brook. It was an easy climb,
under shady trees, and the girls went merrily without stopping
to rest. Then, where a cairn of brook-pebbles marked a change of
direction, Nelly led them at right angles along a narrow footpath
between low bushes and under trees that had not been trimmed for
years. This was the path to the nest. The trees were marked by old
“blazes” or notches made to show the path to keen eyes, and the girls
had fun in trying to see who would be the first to spy each blaze.
Nelly was ahead of the others, and had this advantage. But Cicely’s
eyes were quick; perhaps because she had studied flowers closely and
also because she liked to draw and sketch out of doors, as so many
English girls do.
It was very exciting to lose the trail for a moment, then to find
it again plainly marked some yards ahead, when you thought it gone
forever. It seemed like a live thing, playing at hide and seek with
them. But the girls knew that the only safe way was for the last girl
in line to stay close by the last blaze discovered, until the leader
should reach the next blaze. That is an old woods’ rule. And the
second rule is _Keep Together_--which was also the Club motto.
By and by the path ceased to climb. They had come out upon flat
ground covered with very tall old spruce trees, many of them draped
with grey moss, like bearded giants. Beverly and Anne were chatting
at the end of the line, and the others were a bit ahead, when Nelly
turned and signed to them to be quiet. “_Sh!_” she cautioned with her
finger on her lip. “We mustn’t talk now!” Anne was annoyed.
“Why can’t I talk?” said she. “She needn’t give orders, as if she
were a captain herself!” And she went on talking. But the others all
looked back and frowned “_Sh!_”
“We are coming near the nest, I reckon!” explained Beverly in a
whisper. “Nelly says she hears something. We don’t want to frighten
the eagles away if they are there.” At this Anne was sulkily silent.
There seemed nothing to reply.
They tiptoed through the woods, trying not to snap the underbrush.
Climbing over a fallen old log, Gilda was unlucky enough to lose her
balance and fall head foremost with a crash. “_Sh!_” warned the whole
Club in a gigantic whisper. And it sounded so funny as a chorus that
they all began to shake with laughter they must not express aloud.
Gilda picked herself up unhurt, and they crept on. Finally Nelly
halted the procession and they gathered about her to hear what she
had to say.
“The nest is up in the top of that great tall pine tree there on the
edge of the swamp,” she whispered. “Uncle says it has been there
perhaps a hundred years. And that maybe the same pair of eagles have
been here ever since he was a boy. Eagles never desert their mates,
and they are the most devoted mothers and fathers. Listen! Do you
hear that high little pipe? That’s an eagle now.”
It did not seem possible that the shrill, harsh sound could be the
voice of the king of birds!
“There is the nest,” whispered Nelly, pointing. “See! There is
something up there!” A great platform of coarse twigs projected
from a crotch near the top of the huge pine tree. Below the trunk
was bare. While they peered in turn through the bird-glasses that
Norma had brought, they could make out two huge bird-shaped objects
silhouetted against the sky, perched on top of this rude nest. They
were the children of the bald-headed eagle. The squawking little
monsters were begging for food with greedy bills, as undignified as
young robins.
“Where do you suppose the old birds are?” asked Norma.
“Gone to get dinner for the family, probably,” answered Nelly. “They
may be fishing for themselves down by the sea, or stealing from the
fish-hawks, like robbers. I daresay they are miles away. Their great
wings are so strong.”
“I wish I could see those babies better,” said Nancy discontentedly.
“It’s hard to tell where the birds leave off and the nest begins. I
am going to climb up in this tall spruce and see them nearer.” The
spruce was about twenty feet from the pine and half as tall.
“Oh, don’t try it, Nancy!” begged Nelly Sackett.
“No, I wouldn’t,” added Norma. “The old birds might come. It’s too
hard a climb for a girl.”
That was enough. “Pooh!” said Nancy beginning to mount. “I can climb
as well as any boy!” And indeed she scaled the tree like a young
monkey.
“Tante told us to keep together,” protested Nelly Sackett. “Please,
Nancy!” But Nancy retorted:
“She meant keep together _horizontally_. This is _vertically_! That’s
different!” She was half way up the tree, pulling herself from crotch
to crotch, and grumbling at the spruce gum with which the tree was
too generously supplied. “I’m all sticky, but I can see finely now!”
she cried. “There are two babies, and their heads are rusty brown.
Oh, they are _plain_!”
They could see Nancy clinging far up in the tree; and the little
eagles seemed also to spy her. For they set up a horrible squawking.
Presently the girls heard another sound. A high piping scream far
away, but growing louder.
“The old eagles are coming!” cried Nelly Sackett. “Hurry up, Nancy!
Come down!”
You cannot hurry very fast coming down from a high tree. Nancy began
to descend. But before she had gone very far a great shadow came
between her and the sun. Mighty wings with a stretch of at least
seven feet from tip to tip seemed to Nancy like the pinions of the
Roc in the Arabian Nights. There were two of the birds, and they were
circling round her high up in the air, screaming frightfully. The old
eagles had come to defend their babies!
Nancy suddenly remembered the stories she had read about the
fierceness of eagles when their young are in danger. She knew they
would try to peck her eyes, or beat her with their great wings.
“Keep in the thick part of the tree, Nancy!” called out Nelly. “They
can’t get at you there.”
Nancy clung close to the trunk, and gradually let herself slip down
to the ground where the other girls were cowering, very white and
anxious. The eagles could not get at them there, though they still
circled screaming overhead. The trees grew too thickly; the great
birds would not venture down among them where those enormous wings
might be entangled in the branches. Eagles have to fight in the
open; which is the only hope of the small, weak creatures they would
otherwise make their prey.
“Oh Nancy!” Cicely grabbed her cousin with trembling hands. “I was so
frightened!”
“It was a silly thing to do,” Nancy confessed rather shamefacedly.
“Mother will certainly have the right to scold me. Since I wouldn’t
keep together, I was very nearly taken apart! I’ll not forget our
motto in a hurry, girls!”
“Let’s get away from here,” suggested Beverly. And the others were
eager to do as she said. Tripping and breathless they made their way
through the woods back to the main path up the mountain. The old
eagles followed them for some distance, high up above the trees,
screaming their anger at the meddling humans. But finally they gave
up the pursuit, deciding perhaps to go back and hear what their
youngsters had to tell about it. The girls breathed more freely when
the sound of those most unregal voices ceased screaming overhead. But
they did not pause for rest or for lunch, till they had the swamp
and another small mountain between them and the eagle’s nest; till,
in fact, they were on top of the highest mountain, where they chose
a nice shady spot out of the wind and sank down to eat and enjoy the
view.
[Illustration: nancy clung close to the trunk]
They were pretty tired, exhausted with excitement and extremely
hungry. They did not talk much till it was time to start down the
mountain again.