He lay there resting for some moments and then, rising, found it necessary to cut his shirt into ribbons in order to bind up some of the wounds which had been inflicted and from which the blood was trickling in considerable quantities.
“Talk about the great American eagle!” mused the boy. “I shall never want to see one again unless he’s on a piece of money! The noble bird of liberty is certainly a scrapper when it comes down to brass tacks, but the encounter of today shows that he is inclined to take every advantage of an opponent!”
Regarding his torn clothes ruefully, the boy once more glanced up at the shelf where he had very foolishly deposited his coat, his revolver and flashlight. His hat had been torn from his head during the first minute of the battle.
“It strikes me,” he considered, “that I’d better head for camp without going back after that plunder.”
Through the break in the mountainous range in which he stood he could see the red sun dropping low down into the sky. He knew that to attempt to secure his property would be to give up all hope of reaching camp before the night fell.
The next question for him to consider was as to whether he should attempt to convey the bird he had shot into camp.
“If I don’t take in the prize,” he mused with a smile showing on his face, “the boys will pretend to believe that I never had any battle with an eagle; that I received my injuries in some other way.”
He looked down at his torn clothing and at his bandaged wrists, and for a moment, realizing how tired he was, resolved to abandon the prize for the time being and make for the camp at all speed. At last, however, the boy’s indomitable courage asserted itself, and he picked up the heavy bird and started on his journey to camp.
Somehow the conformation of the land seemed to always lead him away from the direction he hoped to follow. Here a ledge he was following wound sharply around to the south, ending in a precipitous slope which obliged him to retrace his steps. There a gully in the hills threw a mountain torrent in his path. Long before he saw the light of the campfire, he was nearly ready to drop from exhaustion.
The cheerful blaze, however, brought new courage to his heart and before long he came within the circle of light. When he turned the angle of the rock, Harry and Gilroy greeted him with exclamations of dismay.