CHAPTER XVIII

A NEW DEAL

The sky was so blue and fleckless, the air so clear, the spring grass so green, and all nature so tranquil at this moment that there was little wonder Nurse Brown and little Marian, as well as Myron himself, suspected no threatening danger. The shadow of the descending eagle might have been that of a cloud crossing the face of the sun.

But Oriole and Teddy Ford, on the summit of the low ridge overlooking the glade where the nurse and the twins were, saw Myron's peril plainly. The great bird of prey was swooping directly upon the little boy. Its shadow completely mantled Myron, who was stooping with his back to the direction from which the bird was coming.

"He'll be killed!" shouted Teddy Ford. "That eagle's a killer!"

"Oh, Teddy, save him!" cried Oriole in return.

She knew little about the ferocity of a hungry eagle, or one with a nestful of eaglets to supply with food. Sheep and even young calves have been killed or carried away by the Rocky Mountain eagle--the largest of its tribe in North America. In addition to its strength and savageness, the eagle knows no fear.

Quite involuntarily Oriole herself started to help Myron. She did not know what she could do, but she started Molly, the pony, forward and rode smartly down the slope toward the unsuspecting Myron.

"Why, Oriole Putnam! where did you come from?" was Nurse Brown's greeting, as she saw the girl flying toward them. "And who is that with you?"

Oriole could not stop to reply. Molly carried her past the pony phaeton, and then the horse swerved and snorted. The beat of the eagle's pinions startled Molly, and she shied.

Oriole, however, kept her seat pluckily. Had she only been able to stoop from her saddle and whisk Myron out of danger--as one of the cowboys could have done!

But that feat was quite beyond her power. Indeed, the girl was so frightened--frightened for Myron--that she scarcely thought of any plan of action. She merely urged Molly on, hoping that her coming would drive the great bird away. For she did not understand the courage and savageness of this, the king of the feathered tribes.

However, her appearance on horseback so near the stooping child made the eagle swerve. It mounted again, wheeled, and with a hoarse cry swooped again. At this Myron was startled and stood up to see what was happening, while Nurse Brown and Marian began to scream.

"Oh! Oh! Shoo that naughty bird away, Oriole!" shrieked little Marian. "It'll eat up Mywon."

"Use your quirt, child!" commanded Sadie Brown earnestly.

But Oriole had no quirt with her. She had found Molly so gentle and kind that she had seen no reason for carrying the heavy whip which the punchers seemed to consider a necessary part of their equipment when riding.

Now she found out why this was so. Not always was the quirt needed to discipline the mount. Had she possessed the heavy whip Oriole could have beaten off the eagle in its second swoop upon the frightened twin.

As it was, Molly leaped aside again, snorting, and the pinions of the frantic eagle almost swept Oriole from her seat in the saddle. Myron looked up to see the distended talons of the great bird and its fierce eyes just overhead. The little boy did not shriek aloud, but he cast himself face down on the grass.

It was the wisest move he could have made, although without doubt Myron did it quite involuntarily. The great eagle came down with its legs so widely astride that it straddled the little blue-clad body of the boy, with its talons not even touching Myron's clothing!

To Oriole, whirling her pony at a distance of only a few yards to charge back bravely at the fierce bird, the landing of the latter was like the landing of an aeroplane. The eagle seemed to rebound from the force of its contact with the sward. But it stopped directly over the prostrate Myron.

"Hit him! Oh, if I only had a gun!" screamed Nurse Brown.

But nobody had a weapon--that is, nobody on the spot. And even the cowpunchers on the Three-bar and the neighboring ranches seldom carried six-shooters in their belts save on night-watch when wolves or big cats were likely to come down from the mountains to prey upon the herds.

In any case, there was no chance of killing the eagle right at this moment, and to drive it away from its prey seemed impossible. But Oriole urged her pony toward the huge bird, crying out as well for Myron to lie still. Oriole realized that if the child remained quiet the bird would be less savage. Somewhere she had heard or read that these huge birds of prey did not care for dead game--although the idea has often been exploded in fact. However, Myron's struggles would have excited the eagle to greater rage.

Molly swerved sharply again. The pony was afraid of the huge bird--and well she might be! Nor could Oriole do anything in reality to beat off the eagle.

It was Teddy Ford who not only had it in his power to aid Myron, but had the self-possession and bravery necessary to do so. He came running down the slope of the ridge, and as he ran he whirled the loop of Oriole's lariat about his head.

"Get away, Oriole!" he shouted. "Look out!"

Molly carried Oriole out of the way with no effort on the latter's part. The coils of the lariat whisked through the air, the loop hovering for an instant over the big bird. Then the loop settled and Teddy flung himself backward on the ground, his bootheels digging into the sod.

[Illustration: THE COIL OF THE LARIAT WHISKED THROUGH THE AIR.]

The eagle vented a scream that fairly made Oriole's blood run cold. She had no idea that the bird could utter such a savage challenge.

The loop encircled the bird's neck and one of its great wings. Teddy began pulling in on the rope, and the loop tightened. The eagle was dragged away from the prostrate Myron, and hopped most awkwardly over the ground.

Teddy scrambled to his feet, jumping on the slack of the rope. He shouted again to Oriole:

"Get that kid out of the way! Hurry, now!"

Oriole obeyed eagerly. She got down from the saddle and let Molly run away if she would--although the pony did not run far--while she gathered the frightened Myron in her arms.

She ran toward Nurse Brown and the phaeton. She thought they all might drive away from the vicinity of the huge and angry bird. But Myron struggled to be put down.

"I'm not going to be carried by a girl!" gasped the little fellow. "Haven't I got legs of my own?"

His pride was greater than his fear of the eagle, and he would not even take Oriole's hand as he ran toward his sister and the nurse.

"Look at that crazy boy!" cried Sadie Brown.

She referred to Teddy Ford, not to little Myron Langdon. The boy who had so promptly come to Myron's aid was playing the great eagle just as though it were a fish. When it sought to leap into the air, Teddy dragged hard on the rope and pulled the eagle down. The latter would gladly have escaped now; but Teddy would not loosen the noose.

The struggle between boy and bird continued for several minutes. Once the eagle rose so far that he fairly yanked Teddy from the ground. But either the boy's weight was too great or the entangling rope crippled the bird's flight too seriously for the flight to be successful.

Altogether it was a strange and threatening struggle to observe. Oriole and Sadie Brown were thrilled by it, although the twins were too frightened to feel much admiration for Teddy Ford in his novel act as eagle tamer.

They were all so interested, however, that at first they did not observe the approach of another actor on the scene. But down from the range on which the cattle grazed came a great black horse with a rider that urged him on with whip and spur when he saw what was happening in the little valley. Myron spied this riding figure first.

"Here comes daddy! Now that old eagle will get his!" cried the little boy, with perfect confidence in his father's might and wisdom.

Teddy Ford had too much to do just then to notice the approach of the ranchman. But Oriole and the nurse were glad indeed to see Mr. Langdon.

The owner of the Three-bar Ranch drew in the black stallion and spun him around with a skillful manipulation of the reins. He leaped from his saddle and started for the struggling eagle, quirt in hand, shouting to Teddy:

"Let her loose, boy! You'll cut the bird to pieces if you drag on the rope that way. Loosen up!"

"Well, of all things!" ejaculated the plain-speaking Sadie Brown. "Don't you suppose, Harvey Langdon, that we want to kill that horrid thing?"

But Teddy Ford had instinctively obeyed the ranchman's command. The noose once loosened, the eagle hopped away awkwardly. Mr. Langdon, who wore heavy gauntlets, rushed in, avoided a stroke of the eagle's right wing, and seized the ruffled neck of the bird.

"Oh, Mr. Langdon, he'll bite you!" cried Oriole.

The ranchman merely laughed, loosened the noose of the lariat, and threw the rope entirely off the eagle. Then he leaped back, letting the monster bird go free.

"Oh, Daddy, I wanted that bird!" shrieked Myron, although his little sister was still hiding her eyes and sobbing with fright.

"I guess not. We don't kill or maim eagles if we can help it," said Harvey Langdon promptly. "Don't you realize that is an American eagle--the noblest bird that flies? And the salmon fishers along the West Coast have all but exterminated them. That sort of people have no patriotism----"

"'Patriotism!'" scoffed Sadie Brown. "A little more and that eagle would have carried away Myron and you would never have seen the poor child again."

"What's that?" exclaimed the ranchman, sharply.

"That's what I'm telling you, Harvey Langdon. If it hadn't been for this boy--Well, I declare, if it isn't Teddy Ford."

For the first time the nurse looked at Teddy long enough to recognize him. Mr. Langdon turned, too, and stared at the boy now quietly coiling Oriole's lariat.

"Hullo, Ted," the ranchman said, after a moment. "Tell us about this. What's going on here?"

Teddy had been watching the heavy flight of the eagle with something like disappointment. He dragged his gaze back from the mounting eagle and looked at Mr. Langdon. Color rose in his tanned cheeks.

But before he could speak Oriole broke in. It was she who explained to Mr. Langdon the attack of the eagle on Myron and what had followed. And the girl saw to it that the story lacked nothing in the telling. She "played up" Teddy Ford's victory over the eagle in a masterly fashion, and as she talked Mr. Langdon's eyes began to twinkle and a smile wreathed his lips.

"I see very well, Ted," he finally observed, "that you are bound to be a good angel to my children. I have just got to look on you in an entirely different light from that in which I saw you when we met the last time. We'll let that old trouble slide, if you say so, Ted. This is a new deal."

He strode forward and offered his hand to the abashed boy.

"This is a new deal," he repeated. "Bygones are bygones. I am very thankful to you for what you have been able to do for me and mine on these two occasions. And I am sorry that in the heat of anger I accused you as I did last fall and drove you away from the Three-bar."

"My goodness!" whispered Sadie Brown to Oriole, who had ridden near to the phaeton on Molly. "My goodness! I never heard Harvey Langdon own up he was wrong before."

The ranchman's frank avowal of his mistake impressed Teddy Ford as well. The boy took the man's hand modestly.

"That's all right, sir," he said gruffly. "Mebbe you ain't so much to blame. You didn't know me very well. Is--is there a job here for me now?"

"Surest thing you know!" declared the father of the twins. "You go to Sol Perkins. I have already spoken to him about you, for Oriole, here, said you were surely coming."

He chuckled, and his eyes twinkled again with mischief. "That girl has got a lot of faith in you, boy, if nobody else has."