"That's it! Follow me and I will show you where to get some." And Madge set off running across the field, closely pursued by the two others.
It was not very difficult to guess where the sticks were to be found. Every winter the wind had a delightful way of blowing down some large boughs on the farm, and these used to be cut up and stacked together until wanted for various purposes. The children regarded these windfalls as expressly designed for their convenience and amusement. They climbed on the heavier logs, which were piled into temptingly irregular mountains several feet high; and of the smaller sticks they made every kind of defensive weapon.
Madge led the way straight to one of these wood-piles. After much study she chose several small branches, and all three children, producing knives out of their pockets, set to work hacking off unnecessary twigs. The twigs being extremely tough and the knives not at all sharp, this process took a long time, and the afternoon seemed to be going by without their even coming in sight of Eagle's Nest.
"It's really no good trying to tidy up these sticks here!" Madge cried at last in despair. "Let us each carry as many branches as we can to the Eagle's Nest, and we can trim them into shape there when we see exactly what we want."
This seemed a particularly good idea, as all their hands were aching after sawing away for so long with their blunt knives at the hard wood. So a procession set out, each child dragging a branch along the ground. By doing it that way they could move good-sized branches which would afterwards cut up into several sticks.
"Oh, Madge, it's perfect! It's quite perfect!" cried the twins some time later, when, hot and panting, they at last dropped their burdens beneath the great beech-tree by the wall.
"I really think it's pretty good," replied Madge modestly. She felt that as she had invented this plan herself it would not be good manners for her to admire it too freely. "You see those two boughs poking out like great arms over the field? The sticks must be long enough to stretch from one to the other, and the Eagle's Nest when it is built will be between them."
"Oh, why did we never think of it before!" exclaimed Betty, rolling on the ground in an ecstasy of admiration.
"Well, you know we don't often come into this corner of the field to look about," Madge reminded her; "it's so far from the house. And besides," she added frankly, "I used to be rather afraid of coming here without Nurse when I was smaller, because of Mrs. Howard."
A shade of anxiety passed over the younger children's faces. They had forgotten all about that mysterious old lady behind the wall, with her terrible character for madness and crime. Yet she was possibly lurking within a few yards of them, even listening to what they were saying.