THE EAGLE AND THE SCOUT
And so these two strolled on. And presently they came to a point where
the wood was more sparse, for they were approaching the rugged lower
ledges of a mighty mountain, and the last rays of the dying sun fell
upon the rocks and scantier vegetation of this clearer area, emphasizing
the solemn darkness of the wooded ascent beyond.
Few, even of the scouts, had ever penetrated the enshrouding wilderness
of that dizzy, forbidding height. There were strange tales, usually told
to tenderfeet around the camp-fire, of mysterious hermits and ferocious
bears and half-savage men who lurked high up in those all but
inaccessible fastnesses, but no scout from Temple Camp had ever
ascended beyond the lower reaches of that frowning old monarch.
At Temple Camp, when the cheery blaze was crackling in the witching hour
of yarn telling, the seasoned habitués of the camp would direct the eye
of the newcomer to a little glint of light high up upon the mountain,
and edify him with dark tales of a lonesome draft dodger who had
challenged that tangled profusion of tree and brush to escape going to
war and had never been able to find his way down again--a quite just
punishment for his cowardice. But time and again this freakish glint of
light had been proven to be the reflection of that very camp-fire upon a
huge rock lodged up there and held by interlacing roots.
Tom and Hervey stood upon a ledge of rock just outside the area of a
great elm tree, and as they looked down and afar off, Black Lake seemed
a mere puddle with toy cabins near it.
"I bet there are wild animals up there," Hervey said.
"Here's one of them now," commented Tom, pointing upward.
High above them in the dusk and with a background of golden-edged
clouds, which gave the sun's last parting message to the earth, a great
bird hovered motionless. It seemed to hang in air as if by a thread.
Then it descended with a wide, circling swoop. In less than ten seconds,
as it seemed to Hervey, its body and great wings, and even its curved,
cruel beak, were plainly visible circling a few yards above the tree. It
seemed like a journey from the heavens to the earth, all in an instant.
"Watch him, watch him," Hervey whispered.
But Tom was not watching him at all. He knew what that savage descent
meant and he was looking for its cause. Stealthily, with no more sound
than that of a gliding canoe, he stole to the trunk of the tree and
looked about with quick, short, scrutinizing glances, away up among its
branches.
Then he placed his finger to his lips, warning Hervey to silence, and
beckoned him into the darker shadow under the great tree.
"Did you see anything beside the bird?" he whispered.
"No," said Hervey. "Why? What is it?"
"Shh," Tom said; "look up--shh----"
It was the most fateful moment of all Hervey Willetts' scout career, and
he did not know it.