."

So we left Black Hawk unburied, and bringing over an old fox-trap,
fastened a large stick of wood to it and set it near. During the day we
saw the eagle hovering about the spot, also a great flock of crows,
cawing noisily, and next morning when we went over to see if any of them
had got into the trap, both trap and stick were gone.

"Must have been the eagle," said Addison. "A crow could never have
carried off that trap!" But as neither trap nor eagle was anywhere in
sight, we concluded that we had lost the game.

Several days passed, when one morning we heard a pow-wow of crows down
in the valley beyond the Little Sea. A flock of them were circling about
a tree-top, charging into it.

"Owl, or else a raccoon, I guess," said Addison. "Crows are always
hectoring owls and 'coons whenever they happen to spy one out by day."

Thinking that perhaps we might get a 'coon, we took the gun and went
down there. But on coming near, instead of a raccoon, lo! there was our
lost eagle, perched in the tree-top, with a hundred crows scolding and
flapping him. He saw us, and started up as if to fly off, but fell back,
and we heard a chain clank.

"Hard and fast in that trap!" exclaimed Addison. The stick and trap had
caught among the branches. The big bird was a prisoner. We wished to
take him alive, but to climb a tall basswood, and bring down an eagle
strong enough to carry off a twelve-pound clog and trap, was not a feat
to be rashly undertaken. Addison was obliged to shoot the bird before
climbing after him. It was a fine, fierce-looking eagle, measuring
nearly six feet from tip to tip of its wings. Its beak was hooked and
very strong, and its claws an inch and a half long, curved and
exceedingly sharp.

Addison deemed it a great prize, for it was not a common bald eagle,
but a much darker bird. After reading his Audubon, he pronounced it a
Golden Eagle and wrote a letter describing its capture, which was
published in several New York papers. Gramp gave him all the following
day to "mount" the eagle as a specimen. In point of fact, he was nearer
three days preparing it. It looked very well when he had it done. I
remember only that its legs were feathered down to the feet.

CHAPTER XX

CEDAR BROOMS AND A NOBLE STRING OF TROUT

It was a part of Gram's household creed, that the wood-house and
carriage-house could be properly swept only with a cedar broom. Brooms
made of cedar boughs, bound to a broom-stick with