Evidently this decided him that he was really free and that his great wings would bear him. He leaped into the air again, spreading his wings, and wheeled to go over the stern of the steamship. The spread of his wings when he flapped them was greater than most of the onlookers had supposed.
"Oh! Oh! Look out, Laddie!" shouted Rose.
Her warning came too late. The end of the great pinion swept Laddie off his feet! He went rolling across the deck, screaming lustily.
"Oh! I'm going overboard! Daddy!" he cried.
But it was Russ who grabbed him and stood him on his feet again.
"You're not going overboard at all," said the older brother. "You couldn't. You'd have to climb over the rail to do it."
"We-ell!" breathed Laddie. "It's a wonder he didn't take me right with him!"
Then he, like everybody else, became interested in the passage of the great bird as it mounted skyward. It went up in a long slant at first, and then began to spiral upward, right toward the sun, and presently was out of sight.
"It can look the sun straight in the face," said Daddy Bunker. "Which is something we cannot do."
"No wonder its eye is red, then," said Rose.