“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.”