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 fell over at this exclamation of her boy friend. She clung to Neale's jacket sleeve, whispering:
"Oh, dear me! Let's not speak to him! Come, Neale! let's run. I--I am _so_ ashamed about those strawberries."
"Step on that furderinest wing, young feller," said the big, old man to Neale. "He's dead--jest as dead as though he'd laid there a year. He's jest a-kickin' like a old rooster with his head off. Don't _know_ he's dead, that's all. Step on that wing; it'll keep him from thrashin' hisself to pieces," added the farmer, as Neale O'Neil obeyed him.
The girls looked on in awe. Tom Jonah stood by, panting, his tongue out and his plume waving proudly.
"That's a great dog," said Mr. Bob Buckham.
"And---- Why, hullo, son! you used to work for us, didn't you?"
"Ho, ho!" shouted the bushy-headed old man, spying Lycurgus and Sue coming from the edge of the woods. "I beat ye to it that time, Lycurgus. And what was little Sissy doing out there where the old eagle could git his eye on her? I swow! if it hadn't been for the dog, mebbe the eagle would ha' pecked her some--eh?"