was not a spot round about which they did not
search, thinking that somehow the child might have got out of the pail
and hidden itself for fun; but the little girl was not there, and there
was no sign of her.

'Where can she be?' moaned the old man, in despair. 'Oh, why did I ever
leave her, even for a moment? Have the fairies taken her, or has some
wild beast carried her off?' And they began their search all over again;
but neither fairies nor wild beasts did they meet with, and with sore
hearts they gave it up at last and turned sadly into the hut.

And what had become of the baby? Well, finding herself left alone in a
strange place she began to cry with fright, and an eagle hovering near,
heard her, and went to see what the sound came from. When he beheld
the fat pink and white creature he thought of his hungry little ones
at home, and swooping down he caught her up in his claws and was soon
flying with her over the tops of the trees. In a few minutes he reached
the one in which he had built his nest, and laying little Wildrose (for
so the old man had called her) among his downy young eaglets, he flew
away. The eaglets naturally were rather surprised at this strange
animal, so suddenly popped down in their midst, but instead of beginning
to eat her, as their father expected, they nestled up close to her and
spread out their tiny wings to shield her from the sun.

Now, in the depths of the forest where the eagle had built his nest,
there ran a stream whose waters were poisonous, and on the banks of
this stream dwelt a horrible lindworm with seven heads. The lindworm had
often watched the eagle flying about the top of the tree, carrying food
to his young ones and, accordingly, he watched carefully for the moment
when the eaglets began to try their wings and to fly away from the
nest. Of course, if the eagle himself was there to protect them even the
lindworm, big and strong as he was, knew that he could do nothing; but
when he was absent, any little eaglets who ventured too near the ground
would be sure to disappear down the monster's throat. Their brothers,
who had been left behind as too young and weak to see the world, knew
nothing of all this, but supposed their turn would soon come to see the
world also. And in a few days their eyes, too, opened and their wings
flapped impatiently, and they longed to fly away above the waving
tree-tops to mountain and the bright sun beyond. But that very midnight
the lindworm,