Immediately Pig Head got ready for the Chieftain.  What’s that?  Yes, the Chieftain is right.  That great, haughty bird had not moved.  You see, eagles are not educated up to seeing their full-grown sons disappear into the bowels of the earth without explanation or warning given.  There is nothing in their experience to meet the phenomenon.  Consequently they don’t tumble, as a rule, and—­well, listen for yourself.

In a short time—­a short time for an eagle; not less than half-an-hour, really—­the Chieftain flapped heavily to the bait, and fed—­beastily, if the truth must be told.

He was bigger than his son, and heavier, and knew more about the world, and Pig Head was longer in seeing a fair chance to make a grab at the royal legs.  At last, however, the chance came, and Pig Head grabbed.  The Chieftain naturally lost his balance, and before he knew what had happened he was inside Pig Head’s “booby-hutch.”

The Chieftain, however, was not an ordinary bird, not even an ordinary eagle.  Moreover, he must have been a great age, older even than Pig Head.  Be that as it may, the Chieftain believed mightily in the wild maxim which says, “They should take who have the power, and they should keep who can.”

And upon that he acted.

It all happened in a flash.  Like lightning his right wing came round with a terrific flail-stroke, and hit Pig Head in the face at the precise instant that the surgical instrument he carried as his beak sank deep into one of Pig Head’s calves.  The Chieftain was upside-down at the moment, and his legs were tied together, but that made no difference to the savagery of the blow.

Pig Head uttered one howl of agony, and tumbled backwards, and his devil saw to it that he should tumble backwards upon the very sack wherein lay the Chieftain’s son, squirming with rage.  The Chieftain’s son was a son of his father, and hearing the young hurricane of his father’s wings, and feeling the intolerable weight of Pig Head sitting involuntarily down upon him, struck for the cause like a good un—­struck, with his cruel, hooked bill, through sack, through trousers, through pants, and home through flesh, and Pig Head rebounded into the air considerably quicker than he had gone down, hitting his head against the roof, a resounding whack, and yelling fit to awake all the devils in cinders.  And he did not go alone.  Upon one calf, and upon—­another portion of him, the Chieftain and the Chieftain’s son went with him.

Very few men have ever left a powder-magazine on fire in quicker time than did Pig Head leave his hiding-place, and none could have made more noise in the process.  The Chieftain stuck to him lovingly, and the Chieftain’s son, sack and all, seemed determined never to leave him; and Pig Head was nearly demented with pain as he leapt out, caracoling wildly, into the light of day, and into the arms of—­only the laird, the head stalker, four gillies, and two collies.