“But I war rousted out o’ my rev’rie by feelin’ the hat suddintly jirked up off o’ my head, at the same time gettin’ a scratch across the cheek, that sent the blood spurtin’ all over my face. It wur the talons o’ the she eagle as did it; while the ole cock, clost to her tail, kept skreekin’ an’ screamin’ an’ makin’ a confusion o’ noises, as if he had jess come custrut from the towers o’ Babylon.
“I had grupped one o’ the young baldies afore the old ’uns kim up. I needn’t tell ye I war only too glad to let the durned thing go agen, an’ duck my head under the edge o’ the neest; whar I kep it, till the critters had got a sort o’ tired threetenin’ me, and guv up the attack.
“I needn’t tell ye, neyther, thet I, too, hed gin up all thort o’ takin’ the young eagles. Arter the wound I’d received I war contented to leave ’em alone; an’ not all the gold in the Britisher’s purse ked then have bought that brace o’ birds.
“I only waited to rekiver my composure; an’ then I commenced makin’ back tracks down the tree.
“I hed got ’bout halfway atween the baldies’ neest an’ the place whar the fox-grape tuk holt o’ the cyprus, when I war stopped short by somethin’ I heerd—a sound far more terrific than the screech o’ the eagles.
“It war the creakin’ and crashin’ o’ timber—along wi’ that unairthly rumblin’ such as ye may hear when the banks o’ the great Mississippi be a cavin’ in.
“It war that very thing itself. I kud see the trees that stood atween me an’ the river, tumblin’ an’ tossin’ about, an’ then goin’ wi’ a grand swish an’ a plunge into the fast flowin’ current o’ the stream. The cyprus itself shook as if the wind war busy among its branches. I ked feel a suddint jirk upon it, an’ then it righted agin, and stood steady as a rock. The eagles above me war screamin’ wusa than ever, while I below war tremblin’ like an aspin.
“I knowed well enuf what it all meaned. I knowed that it war the bank o’ the river cavin’ in; but knowin’ this, didn’t gie me any great satisfaction: since I war under the belief that in another minute the Cyprus mout cave in too.
“I didn’t stay the ten thousandth frakshun o’ a minute. I hurried to git back to the groun; an’ soon reached the place whar the grape-vine jeined on to the Cyprus.
“There warn’t no grape-vine to be seen. It war clur gone away.