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ellow moon had risen from behind the glorious mountain peaks surrounding their little primitive West Virginia home, and he and his favorite sister wandered out together into the soft, pine-scented night. Then, however, their thoughts naturally reverted to the mysterious disappearance, and the girl asked somewhat curiously, "So, Washington Beauregard, you won't allow that the 'ornery' thief what stole our pet come on two legs?" "No, Monny, nor on four legs nuther," answered her brother. "Though I didn't want to say much afore the chillen. But I've been a-studyin' over this matter, and I begin to fear that he comes on wings." "On wings! Law, then, he must be a bird! But I never saw a hawk or even an eagle big and strong enough to tote off a half-grown sheep like Cotton Ball. Strikes me it's dumb foolishness you're talkin', Wash." "Waal, I dunno about that. Hevn't you heard the old hunters, on winter nights, tell of a curisome-winged thing that once made its nest over yonder on Snaggle Tooth?" and the youth pointed to a high, dark, jagged crag silhouetted against the purplish-blue sky. "It did a power of mischief in this neighborhood, totin' off chickens 'n' dogs 'n' sheep, and some say even tacklin' a calf. 'Twas a cute old fowl, so nobody could git a crack at it; but was up to so much devilment, that they called it the Demon of Snaggle-Tooth Rock." "Oh, yaas, I've heard o' that often; but it was years ago, before you or I were born, an' the critter hasn't been raound here since." "That's so; but what has been kin be; and the other day Tim Harkins tole me a yarn about jest sech a bird havin' been seen lately over Stonycliff way. A monstrous chap, something like a golden eagle, only bigger an' wickeder-lookin', with a more crooked beak, an' feathers of a dirty brownish-gray. At the time I thought Tim was jest a-humbuggin', but after the little beast disappeared so unaccountable like, I begun to reckon it must be true, sure enough." "Oh, Wash, I can't bear to think of it!" and Monny's face looked quite pale in the moonlight. "Poor, dear little Cotton Ball! Fancy that demon and his mate tearing her limb from limb. It 'most breaks my heart." And long after the girl had climbed the ladder leading to the low attic under the clapboard roof, which she had shared with the younger children ever since their mother's death one year before, she lingered at the tiny two-paned window gazing off at the peaceful-seeming hills,
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