Agnes shrieked. The two smaller girls were awestruck. Neale O'Neil fairly groaned. It seemed as though the child must fall a victim to the eagle's beak and claws.
Its huge wings, beating the air, drowned most other sounds. Lycurgus struggled to slip another shell into his old-fashioned rifle. Somehow the mechanism had fouled.
At the moment the eagle dropped with spread talons, the big dog leaped. [Page 103]
"Pap! Pap!" screeched the girl at last. "He's goin' to git me!"
At that shrill and awful cry the man flung away his gun and leaped the rail fence into the open field. What he thought he might do with his bare hands against the talons and armed beak of the bird of prey, it would be impossible to say. But whatever fault might be found with Lycurgus Billet, he was no coward.
Bare-handed, hatless, and as white as paper, the man ran toward his little girl. The shadow of the swooping eagle covered them both.
Then it was that Tess Kenway awoke from her trance. She shrieked, suddenly: "Tom! Tom Jonah! Do, do catch it! Tom Jonah! Sic him, boy!"
The growling dog needed no second urging. He flung himself through the fence and dashed across the intervening space. At the moment the eagle dropped with spread talons, the big dog leaped.