ah with it!

Lycurgus leaped in and seized Sue. With her clasped close to his chest
he ran for the shelter of the woods.

But the Corner House girls and Neale O'Neil, with excited cries,
followed in the wake of the lumbering eagle. It plowed across the field,
rising and falling with alternate strokes of its wings. Tom Jonah seemed
in a very precarious situation, indeed.

The old dog had no idea of letting go his hold, however. When once his
jaws were clamped upon an enemy, he was there to stay. Tess was wildly
excited. Dot was crying frankly. Agnes called encouragement to Tom
Jonah. Ruth and Neale were as anxious as the others for the safety of
the old dog, but they saved their breath. All ran as hard as they could
run after the eagle and Tom Jonah.

For, scream and beat his wings as he might, the bird could not dislodge
the dog. Half the time Tom Jonah was on the ground, and when he felt the
earth he dragged back and tore at his feathered antagonist with an
obstinacy remarkable.

The eagle could not thrash Tom Jonah with his wings to any purpose; nor
could he fix his talons in the dog, or spear him with his beak, while
they both were in the air. As the huge bird sprang up the dog bounced
into the air, too; but only for a moment or two at a time. The bird was
growing weaker.

Finally the eagle changed its tactics, and for a moment the two
antagonists whirled over and over on the ground. How the feathers flew!
In some way the bird's talons found the dog's flesh.

It was then, when reckless Neale was trying to find a stone or club,
that a hoarse voice was heard shouting:

"Get away! stand back! I'm going to shoot that critter!"

"Oh!" shrieked Tess Kenway, not at all the timid and mild little girl
she usually was. "Oh! don't you dare shoot Tom Jonah!"

There sounded the heavy explosion of a gun. The eagle screamed no more.
Its great wings relaxed and it tumbled to the earth. Tom Jonah sprang
away from the thrashing bird, which died hard. The man who had shot it
strode in from the other side of the field.

It was not Lycurgus Billet. It was an oldish man, with a big, bushy head
of hair and whiskers. He carried his smoking gun in the hollow of his
arm.

"By cracky! I made a good shot that time, for a fact!" this stranger
declared.

But he was not a stranger to, at least, one of the picnic party. Neale
O'Neil cried out: "Oh, Mr. Buckham, that was a fine shot! And just in
the nick of time."

Agnes almost fe