Yes, I think Uncle Sam was proud of that day's hunting and happy with what he had caught; and the tender meat tasted good to him and his family.
But the man who had owned the lamb before Uncle Sam caught it was not pleased. He happened to be coming out of the woods just in time to see the capture; and an hour later the boy and the girl who lived within sight of Uncle Sam's nest met the man and saw that he carried a gun.
"I'm after a white-headed sheep thief," he said; "do you know which way he flew, after he reached the cliff?"
The boy's face turned white in a second, and he held his fists together very still and very tight. The girl looked at her younger brother and then at the man.
"Yes, we know," she said, "and we will not tell."
"Why?" asked the man. "He took the lamb I was going to roast when it was big enough."
The girl chuckled a little merrily. "And Uncle Sam got ahead of you," she said. "Never mind, I'll get the money to pay for his dinner. The eagles here usually eat fish from the lake, and sometimes game from the swamp; but once in a very, very long while they take a lamb. When that happens, the Junior Audubon Society at our school pays for their treat. I have the money, because I am treasurer."
After the girl turned back to the house for the money, the boy looked hard at the gun. Then he swallowed to get rid of the lump that hurt his throat and said, "If you had shot Uncle Sam or Aunt Samantha or their young, the children for miles and miles NEVER would have liked you. Eagles have nested in that tree for more than seventy years, and nobody except a newcomer would think of shooting one."
So they talked together for some time about eagles; and when the girl came back, the man did not charge so much for Uncle Sam's treat as we sometimes have to pay for our own lamb chops.
And way off among the cliffs Uncle Sam ate in content, not knowing that his life had been in danger, and that he had been saved by a boy and a girl who were growing up "under the shadow of an eagle's wings," as they said to each other as they watched him sail the air in his journeys to and fro.