CHAPTER XI
Afortnightwent by, and “the Tenderfeet,” as Dick called the newer campers, were growing used to camp ways which had seemed queer and hard to some of them at first. In all that time Anne received no letter from her father. But one day Tante did. She did not tell Anne this, but put the letter in her apron pocket and carried it to her favorite spot in the woods to read by herself.
The letter was dated from a place in Canada, and was signed by Mr. Poole. There were some mysterious words among the plain business matters mentioned in the letter. Mr. Poole was writing about the money to be paid for Anne’s summer expenses at the camp. “It is a crisis with me,” he wrote. “You’ll understandbefore long, I guess. I’ll be glad if you will keep Anne as long as you can; then I’ll have to do something, I don’t know what. I can’t write to her, and my wife is all bound up in our little baby, of course. You can’t expect much of her. She isn’t very strong, and of course Baby has first claim on us. That word ‘claim’ makes me sick anyway! I’ve got to harden my heart to everybody. You’ll soon know what I mean.”
“What can the man mean?” thought Tante, fingering this strange letter. “Harden his heart! I should say it must be hard as granite already! Poor little Anne. She is worrying because she does not hear from him. But letters like this don’t make one happy. We must help her to have as good a time as possible this summer.”
Tante went straight to the Fairy Ring where Anne was making up a second cot bed, her own being already properly finished. Her eyes were red. And when Tante appeared in the tent opening Anne hastily brushed a tear with her khaki sleeve. “I’m making Beverly’s bed,” she said, trying to appear careless. “Shemade mine yesterday, without my asking her. Beverly is very nice.”
“I hear you girls are going for a climb to-day,” said Tante smiling approval. “It’s a lovely day for it, and the Eagle’s Nest is not very far.”
“I can climb all right,” said Anne. “But I’ve got letters to write. Tante, why do you suppose I don’t hear from my father?” she cried suddenly, showing what the trouble was that made her eyes red and the tears ready to start.
“There might be many reasons,” said Tante soothingly. “But whatever they are, you mustn’t worry. You must get all the sunshine you can out of this golden summer. You had better go with the girls on this nice trip.”
“Something has happened to Father,” said Anne uneasily. “I have suspected for some time that things weren’t going right. He seems so different. It isn’t like him to sell the animals, even Plon and the old pony.”
“You must be a brave girl,” said Tante, putting her arms around Anne’s shoulders. “If anything happens, we will all stand by, Anne.Friends do help when they get together as we try to do at Round Robin.”
“The girls are all right,” said Anne. “If you say so, I will go with them. And I should like to see an eagle’s nest.”
“That’s right! I have put up a luncheon for you already,” said Tante. “I was sure you would go.”
Anne straightened her shoulders and hurried away to get ready for the climb. Presently she joined the brown group in broad hats and with business-like knapsacks strapped to their shoulders, who were gathered at the back of the camp. The girls were going alone this once. For Hugh and Victor were away for a three-days’ camping trip in the deep woods, and Dick, excused from studies for that time, was acting as Camp Protector in their absence.
“Be sure you keep together and follow your leader,” Tante charged them as she waved good-bye.
“Who is the leader?” asked Anne of Beverly Peyton, who was waiting for her at the endof the line. “Why, Nelly Sackett, of course. She knows the way better than anybody.”
“I didn’t know she was going!” said Anne, hanging back. She felt not unfriendly to Nelly. But she could not get used to the idea of this freckled country girl as a leader inher Club. Anne liked to be a leader herself, or to choose whom she would follow.
“Tante would not let us go without Nelly,” said Beverly. “None of the others have been over the trail this season, not even Nancy. But Tante said we might go if we would be very careful.”
“Of course,” said Anne, reluctantly following in Beverly’s footsteps. She was ashamed to explain how she felt, and why she hated to be at the end of the procession that Nelly led.
The eagle’s nest was on the small mountain that lay at the back of the camp, about two miles distant. The nest was a secret that Captain Sackett had discovered years before, when he was a little boy. How long it had been there before his time nobody knew. But every year two old eagles came to the nest,and used it for a nursery, far above the sea and beyond the homes of men; shut in by thick woods and the bold rocks of the mountain. This was just the time when Captain Sackett had seen a baby eagle there last year; and the Club was eager to visit the nest now, while the Veterans were away, hoping to have something to tell them on their return. For it is not many persons who have seen an eagle on its nest.
It was a wild walk through thick woods with no road; only a narrow trail made in years past by wood-cutters, and since used by campers and summer people at long intervals. For Captain Sackett had kept his secret well, telling only those friends who could be trusted not to hurt or harry the faithful eagles’ well-hidden nursery.
The trail followed at first the bed of a brook. It was an easy climb, under shady trees, and the girls went merrily without stopping to rest. Then, where a cairn of brook-pebbles marked a change of direction, Nelly led them at right angles along a narrow footpath between low bushes and under trees thathad not been trimmed for years. This was the path to the nest. The trees were marked by old “blazes” or notches made to show the path to keen eyes, and the girls had fun in trying to see who would be the first to spy each blaze. Nelly was ahead of the others, and had this advantage. But Cicely’s eyes were quick; perhaps because she had studied flowers closely and also because she liked to draw and sketch out of doors, as so many English girls do.
It was very exciting to lose the trail for a moment, then to find it again plainly marked some yards ahead, when you thought it gone forever. It seemed like a live thing, playing at hide and seek with them. But the girls knew that the only safe way was for the last girl in line to stay close by the last blaze discovered, until the leader should reach the next blaze. That is an old woods’ rule. And the second rule isKeep Together—which was also the Club motto.
By and by the path ceased to climb. They had come out upon flat ground covered with very tall old spruce trees, many of themdraped with grey moss, like bearded giants. Beverly and Anne were chatting at the end of the line, and the others were a bit ahead, when Nelly turned and signed to them to be quiet. “Sh!” she cautioned with her finger on her lip. “We mustn’t talk now!” Anne was annoyed.
“Why can’t I talk?” said she. “She needn’t give orders, as if she were a captain herself!” And she went on talking. But the others all looked back and frowned “Sh!”
“We are coming near the nest, I reckon!” explained Beverly in a whisper. “Nelly says she hears something. We don’t want to frighten the eagles away if they are there.” At this Anne was sulkily silent. There seemed nothing to reply.
They tiptoed through the woods, trying not to snap the underbrush. Climbing over a fallen old log, Gilda was unlucky enough to lose her balance and fall head foremost with a crash. “Sh!” warned the whole Club in a gigantic whisper. And it sounded so funny as a chorus that they all began to shake with laughter they must not express aloud. Gildapicked herself up unhurt, and they crept on. Finally Nelly halted the procession and they gathered about her to hear what she had to say.
“The nest is up in the top of that great tall pine tree there on the edge of the swamp,” she whispered. “Uncle says it has been there perhaps a hundred years. And that maybe the same pair of eagles have been here ever since he was a boy. Eagles never desert their mates, and they are the most devoted mothers and fathers. Listen! Do you hear that high little pipe? That’s an eagle now.”
It did not seem possible that the shrill, harsh sound could be the voice of the king of birds!
“There is the nest,” whispered Nelly, pointing. “See! There is something up there!” A great platform of coarse twigs projected from a crotch near the top of the huge pine tree. Below the trunk was bare. While they peered in turn through the bird-glasses that Norma had brought, they could make out two huge bird-shaped objects silhouetted against the sky, perched on top of this rude nest. Theywere the children of the bald-headed eagle. The squawking little monsters were begging for food with greedy bills, as undignified as young robins.
“Where do you suppose the old birds are?” asked Norma.
“Gone to get dinner for the family, probably,” answered Nelly. “They may be fishing for themselves down by the sea, or stealing from the fish-hawks, like robbers. I daresay they are miles away. Their great wings are so strong.”
“I wish I could see those babies better,” said Nancy discontentedly. “It’s hard to tell where the birds leave off and the nest begins. I am going to climb up in this tall spruce and see them nearer.” The spruce was about twenty feet from the pine and half as tall.
“Oh, don’t try it, Nancy!” begged Nelly Sackett.
“No, I wouldn’t,” added Norma. “The old birds might come. It’s too hard a climb for a girl.”
That was enough. “Pooh!” said Nancy beginning to mount. “I can climb as well asany boy!” And indeed she scaled the tree like a young monkey.
“Tante told us to keep together,” protested Nelly Sackett. “Please, Nancy!” But Nancy retorted:
“She meant keep togetherhorizontally. This isvertically! That’s different!” She was half way up the tree, pulling herself from crotch to crotch, and grumbling at the spruce gum with which the tree was too generously supplied. “I’m all sticky, but I can see finely now!” she cried. “There are two babies, and their heads are rusty brown. Oh, they areplain!”
They could see Nancy clinging far up in the tree; and the little eagles seemed also to spy her. For they set up a horrible squawking. Presently the girls heard another sound. A high piping scream far away, but growing louder.
“The old eagles are coming!” cried Nelly Sackett. “Hurry up, Nancy! Come down!”
You cannot hurry very fast coming down from a high tree. Nancy began to descend. But before she had gone very far a greatshadow came between her and the sun. Mighty wings with a stretch of at least seven feet from tip to tip seemed to Nancy like the pinions of the Roc in the Arabian Nights. There were two of the birds, and they were circling round her high up in the air, screaming frightfully. The old eagles had come to defend their babies!
Nancy suddenly remembered the stories she had read about the fierceness of eagles when their young are in danger. She knew they would try to peck her eyes, or beat her with their great wings.
“Keep in the thick part of the tree, Nancy!” called out Nelly. “They can’t get at you there.”
Nancy clung close to the trunk, and gradually let herself slip down to the ground where the other girls were cowering, very white and anxious. The eagles could not get at them there, though they still circled screaming overhead. The trees grew too thickly; the great birds would not venture down among them where those enormous wings might be entangled in the branches. Eagles have tofight in the open; which is the only hope of the small, weak creatures they would otherwise make their prey.
“Oh Nancy!” Cicely grabbed her cousin with trembling hands. “I was so frightened!”
“It was a silly thing to do,” Nancy confessed rather shamefacedly. “Mother will certainly have the right to scold me. Since I wouldn’t keep together, I was very nearly taken apart! I’ll not forget our motto in a hurry, girls!”
“Let’s get away from here,” suggested Beverly. And the others were eager to do as she said. Tripping and breathless they made their way through the woods back to the main path up the mountain. The old eagles followed them for some distance, high up above the trees, screaming their anger at the meddling humans. But finally they gave up the pursuit, deciding perhaps to go back and hear what their youngsters had to tell about it. The girls breathed more freely when the sound of those most unregal voices ceased screaming overhead. But they did not pause for rest or for lunch, till they had theswamp and another small mountain between them and the eagle’s nest; till, in fact, they were on top of the highest mountain, where they chose a nice shady spot out of the wind and sank down to eat and enjoy the view.
nancy clung closenancy clung close to the trunk
nancy clung close to the trunk
They were pretty tired, exhausted with excitement and extremely hungry. They did not talk much till it was time to start down the mountain again.