manded the little
girl's father.

Sue shook her head. She hadn't got over her scare, however. "My!" she
confessed, "I thought he was a-goin' to grab me--I sure did! And he had
sech a wicked eye."

"You hear that?" demanded old Bob Buckham, fiercely, and Lycurgus shrank
away from the indignant farmer as though he expected to feel the heavy
hand again--and to sterner purpose this time.

"You ain't no business with a young'un like Sissy--you ornery pup!"
growled the old man in the culprit's ear. "I wish she was mine. You
ain't fitten to own little Sissy."

It was evident that the old farmer thought a good deal of the backwoods'
child. Lycurgus said no further word. He walked over to the eagle and
looked down at it.

"He's a whopper!" he observed, smiling in his weak way at the Corner
House girls and Neale O'Neil.

Ruth only nodded coolly. Agnes turned her back on him, while the little
girls stared as wonderingly at Lycurgus Billet as they would had he been
a creature from another world.

Bob Buckham and little Sissy, as he called her, were having a talk at
one side. Something that shone brightly passed from the farmer's hand
into the child's grimed palm.

"Come on, Pap!" said Sue, bruskly. "Let's go home. These folks don't
want us here."

"Lazy, shiftless, inconsequential critter," growled Bob Buckham, coming
back to the dead eagle, as Lycurgus and his daughter moved slowly away
across the field.

But then the old man's face cleared up quickly, though he sighed as he
spoke.

"That only goes to show ye! Some folks never have no chick nor child
and others has got 'em so plentiful that they kin afford ter use 'em for
eagle bait."

His lips took a humorous twist at the corners, his eyes sparkled, and
altogether his bewhiskered countenance took on a very pleasant
expression. The Corner House girls--at least, Ruth and Tess and
Dorothy--began to like the old farmer right away.

"Got to take that critter home," declared Mr. Bob Buckham, as
enthusiastic as a boy over his good luck. "Don't know how I come to lug
my old gun along to-day when I started down this way. I never amounted
to much as a hunter before. Always have left that to fellers like
Lycurgus."

"It was very fortunate for that poor little Sue that you had your
rifle," Ruth said warmly.

"Oh, no, ma'am," returned Mr. Buckham. "It was that dog of yourn saved
little Sissy. But I reckon I saved the dog."

"And we're awfully much obliged to you for _t