“I got the hang of things that time,” he said to himself, though even the sound of his own voice gave him a little encouragement, “and I know how to hit out better after this. Just come on and try it again, you crazy thing, and see what you get, that’s all! Two can play at the give and take game, you’ll find. Here’s a bigger rock I’m going to use, and look out for yourself, old fellow!”
Despite his brave words, the cowering lad watched the evolutions of the monarch of the air with a sense of deep anxiety. He inwardly hoped and prayed that the eagle might determine it had had enough of the fight, and fly away. In fact, Gus was more than willing to call it a draw, so that he might be let alone to grapple with his other troubles.
“I sure believe he’s going to swing in at me again!” muttered the lad, noticing the suggestive actions of the great bird.
He was not kept in doubt long for the eagle once more headed straight toward the spot where Gus crouched awaiting the attack. Gus drew in a full breath, and with every nerve strained to the utmost tension, raised the hand that gripped the rock, striving thus to protect his head against the stroke of that terrible pinion.
CHAPTER IV.
SCOUTS TO THE RESCUE.
When the collision came, the boy uttered a shout that was a curious commingling of pain and exultation. His arm and hand felt as though they had been given a severe galvanic shock, but he was conscious of the pleasing fact that he must have struck the eagle a hard blow with the rock, which had been knocked from his grasp and gone over the edge of the shelf, rattling down along the face of the precipice.
“Where did he go to?” stammered the boy, beginning to recover from the concussion, and casting about for another weapon in the shape of a fragment of granite. “Oh! there he is perched on that spur down below. And see how his wing hangs, will you? Perhaps it’s broken, for it struck my stone like a pile driver. Don’t I hope that’s a fact, though! I warned him he’d get the worst of the bargain if he kept on fooling with me. Serves the old pirate right. But now I’m worse off than ever, because with this lame shoulder I wouldn’t dare take the risk of hanging to a rope and flattening out against the face of the precipice.”
He kept rubbing his lame shoulder while talking. The immediate future did not look very promising. How much time had elapsed while he had been there in his predicament, Gus could not say, but no doubt it seemed many times longer in his mind than was actually the case.
Not being a scout, he had never learned how to tell time from the position of the sun, moon or stars, so that he could only give a rough guess as to how much of the summer afternoon had slipped away.
And now, new sources of dread began to assail him. The sun had crept around so that its scorching rays fell full upon the face of the cliff above, and this aroused Gus to the fact that he was beginning to get exceedingly thirsty. Once he allowed himself to think of this, he imagined that his tongue was trying to cling to the roof of his mouth for lack of a drink. Yes, and he even remembered reading a short time before of the terrible sufferings a boat load of shipwrecked people endured while adrift on the heaving ocean.