EAGLE AND SCOUT
Up, up, he went, now reaching like a monkey, now wriggling like a snake.
Now he loosed one hand to sweep back the hair which fell over his
forehead. Again, unable to release his hold, he threw his head back to
shake away the annoying locks. Tom Slade, stolid though he was, watched
him, thrilled with amazement and admiration.
The great bird was embarrassed in the confines of the foliage by its big
wings. But the freedom and strength of its cruel beak and talons were
unimpaired and every second brought it nearer to the hanging nest.
But every second brought also the scout nearer to the hanging nest. Up,
up he went, now straddling some bending limb, now swinging himself with
lightning agility to one above. Once, crawling on a horizontal branch,
he slid over and hung beneath it, like an opossum.
Twisting and wriggling his way out of this predicament, he scrambled on,
handing himself from branch to branch, and once losing his foothold and
hanging by one hand.
Tom Slade watched spellbound, as the agile form ascended, using every
physical device and disregarding every danger. More than once Tom almost
shuddered at the chances which his young companion took upon some
perilously slender limb. Once, the impulse seized him to call a warning,
but he refrained from a kind of inspired confidence in that young
dare-devil who by now seemed a mere speck of brown moving in and out of
the darkened green above him. Once he was on the point of shouting
advice to Hervey about what to do in the unlikely event of his reaching
the nest before the eagle, or in the more serious contingency of an
encounter with that armed warrior.
For, thrilled as he was at the young scout's agility and fine abandon,
he was yet doubtful of Hervey's power of deliberation and presence of
mind. But no one could advise a creature capable of being carried away
in a very frenzy of nervous enthusiasm, and Tom, sober and sensible,
knew this. Hervey Willetts would do this thing or crash his brains out,
one or the other, and no one could help or hinder him.
Amid the crackling sound of breaking limbs and a shower of leaves and
smaller twigs, the mighty bird of prey, extricating himself from every
obstacle, tore his way into the leafy recess where his little victim
waited, trembling. Every branch seemed agitated by his ruthless,
irresistible advance, and the hanging nest swayed upon its slender
branch, as the cruel talons of the intruder fixed themselves in the
yielding bark. The weight of the monster bird upon the very branch which
his little victim had chosen for a home caused it to bend almost to the
breaking point, and the hanging nest, agitated by the shock, swung low
near the end of the curving bough.
[Illustration: HERVEY SAVES THE LITTLE BIRD FROM THE EAGLE.
_Tom Slade on Mystery Trail. Page_ 42]
That was bad strategy on the part of the invader. As the end of the
bough descended under his weight, there was the appalling sound of a
splitting branch, which made Tom Slade's blood run cold, and he held his
breath in frightful suspense, expecting to see the form of his young
friend come crashing to earth.
But the boy who had ventured out so far upon that straining branch had
swung free of it just in time, and was swinging from the branch above.
The great bird had played into the hands of his dexterous enemy when he
had placed his weight upon the branch above, from which the nest hung.
Hervey could not have trusted his own weight upon that upper branch, and
he knew it. But even had he dared to do this he could not have passed
the enraged bird who stood guard within a yard or two of his little
victim. When the weight of the bird's great body bent the branch down,
Hervey, close in toward the trunk just below, saw his chance. He did not
see the danger.
Scrambling out upon that slender branch, he moved cautiously but with
beating heart, out to a point where the bending branch above was within
his reach. If the eagle had left the branch above, that branch would
have swung out of Hervey's reach and he would have gone crashing to the
ground when his own branch broke. He knew that branch must break under
him. He knew, he _must_ have known, that the chances were at least even
that the eagle would desert the branch above in either assault or
flight.
Hervey's chance was the chance of a moment, and it lay just in this: in
getting far enough out on the branch before it broke to catch the branch
above before it sprang up and away from him. Also he must trust to the
slightly heavier branch above not breaking.
It would be impossible to say by what a narrow squeak he saved himself
in this dare-devil maneuver. His one chance lay in lightning agility.
Yet, first and last, it was an act of fine and desperate
recklessness--the recklessness of a soul possessed and set on one
dominating purpose. This was Hervey Willetts all over. And because he
had a brain and the eagle none or little, he thus used his very enemy to
help him accomplish his purpose.
In that very moment when Tom Slade heard with a shudder the appalling
sound of that splitting branch, something beside the brown nest was also
dangling from the branch which the baffled eagle had suddenly deserted.
Right close to the swaying nest the boy hung, his limbs encircling it,
his two hands locked upon it, trusting to it, just trusting to it. It
bent low in a great sweeping curve, the nest swayed and swung from the
movement of the swing downward, a little olive-colored, speckled head
peeking cautiously out as if to see what all the rumpus was about.
It must have seemed to those little frightened eyes that the familiar
geography of the neighborhood was radically changed. But there was
nothing near to strike terror to it now. There was nothing near but the
green, enshrouding foliage, and the brown object hanging almost
motionless close by.
This was Hervey Willetts of the patrol of the blue scarf, scout of the
first class (if ever there was one) and winner of twenty-one merit
badges....
No, not twenty-one. Twenty and two-thirds.