Up, up, he went, now reaching like a monkey, now wriggling like a snake.
Now he loosed one hand to sweep back the hair which fell over his
forehead. Again, unable to release his hold, he threw his head back to
shake away the annoying locks. Tom Slade, stolid though he was, watched
him, thrilled with amazement and admiration.

The great bird was embarrassed in the confines of the foliage by its big
wings. But the freedom and strength of its cruel beak and talons were
unimpaired and every second brought it nearer to the hanging nest.

But every second brought also the scout nearer to the hanging nest. Up,
up he went, now straddling some bending limb, now swinging himself with
lightning agility to one above. Once, crawling on a horizontal branch,
he slid over and hung beneath it, like an opossum.

Twisting and wriggling his way out of this predicament, he scrambled on,
handing himself from branch to branch, and once losing his foothold and
hanging by one hand.

Tom Slade watched spellbound, as the agile form ascended, using every
physical device and disregarding every danger. More than once Tom almost
shuddered at the chances which his young companion took upon some
perilously slender limb. Once, the impulse seized him to call a warning,
but he refrained from a kind of inspired confidence in that young
dare-devil who by now seemed a mere speck of brown moving in and out of
the darkened green above him. Once he was on the point of shouting
advice to Hervey about what to do in the unlikely event of his reaching
the nest before the eagle, or in the more serious contingency of an
encounter with that armed warrior.