Tom Slade on Mystery Trail Part 4

"See it?" Tom said, pointing up. "You can see it by the little streak of red. I think the little codgers head is poking out. Some scare she had."

Then all in an instant Hervey knew. It seemed incredible that the great bird, hovering at that dizzy height, could have seen the little songster of the woods which even he and Tom had failed to see. And the thought of that smaller bird reaching its home just in time, and poking its head out of the opening to see if all was well, went to Hervey's heart and stirred a sudden anger within him.

"I didn't know they could see all that distance," he said.

"Well, that's one thing you've learned that you didn't know before," Tom said in his matter-of-fact way.

Scarcely had he spoken the words when the foliage above shook and there was a loud rustling and crackling of branches, while many leaves and twigs fell to the ground.

The monarch of the mountain crags, having circled the elm, had found a way in where the foliage was least dense, and had thus with irresistible power carried the outer defenses of that little hanging citadel.

And still the little streak of red showed up there in the dimness of those invaded branches, and one might have fancied it to be the colors of the besieged victim, flaunting still in a kind of hopeless defiance.

Down out of the green twilight above floated a feather, then another--trifling losses of the conqueror in his triumphal entry.

"You're not going to get away with that," said Hervey in a voice tense with wrath and grim determination; "you're--you're--not----"

What happened then happened so quickly as almost to rival the descent of the destroyer in lightning movement. Before Tom Slade realized what had happened, there was Hervey's khaki jacket on the ground, his discarded hat was blowing away, and his navy blue scout scarf was plastered by the freshening breeze flat against the trunk of the tree.

Hervey Willetts, who had dreamed and striven all through the vacation season of "capturing the Eagle," as they say, was on his quest in dead earnest.

CHAPTER VIII

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 embarra.s.sed 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sault 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 cla.s.s (if ever there was one) and winner of twenty-one merit badges....

No, not twenty-one. Twenty and two-thirds.

CHAPTER IX

TO INTRODUCE ORESTES

Hervey moved cautiously in along the limb to a point where he felt sure that it would hold his weight, and as he did so it moved slowly up into place. What the little householder thought of all this topsy-turvy business it might be amusing to know. For surely, if the world war changed the map of Europe, the little neighborhood of leaf and branch where this timid denizen of the woods lived and had its being, had been subject to jolts and changes quite as sweeping. Now and again it poked its downy speckled head out for a kind of disinterested squint at things, apparently unconcerned with mighty upheavals so long as its little home was undisturbed.

Hervey Willetts straddled the branch and calculated the thickness of it.

"You all right?" he heard Tom call from below.

"Yop," he called back; "did you see his n.o.bs fly away? Back to the crags for him, hey? Wait down there a few minutes, I'm going to bring a friend."

Hervey had now a very nice little calculation to make. In the first place he must not frighten his new acquaintance by approaching too near again. Neither must he make any sudden and unnecessary noise or motions.

He knew that a nest of that particular sort was more than a home, it was a comparatively safe refuge, and he knew that its occupant would not emerge and desert it without good cause. One of those precious twenty badges was evidence of that much knowledge.

His purpose was to cut the branch as near to the nest as he dared, both from the standpoint of the bird's peace of mind and his own safety. The further from the nest he cut, the thicker would be the branch, and the more cutting there would be to do. To cut too near to the nest might frighten his little neighbor on the branch, and endanger his own life.

Yet if he cut the branch where it was thick, how could he handle it after it was detached? How would he get down with it through all that network of lower branches?

In his quandary he hit on a plan involving new peril for himself and doubtless some agitation to his little neighbor. He would not detach the nest from its branch, for how could he ever attach it to another branch in a way satisfactory to that finicky little householder? He knew enough about his business to know that no bird would continue to live in a nest which had been tampered with to that extent.

So he advanced cautiously out on the branch again till he could reach the nest. Then very gently he bound his handkerchief about the opening.

Having done this, he cut into the branch with his scout knife within about six or eight inches of the nest. When he had cut the branch almost through it was a pretty ticklish matter, straddling the stubby end, for he had the tip of the branch with the nest still in his hand and was in danger of losing his balance.