"Well," said Burt, laughing, "that exceeds any eagle adventure that I
have heard of in this region. In the car business you certainly brought
his majesty down to the prose of common life, and I don't wonder the
regal bird refused to eat thereafter."

"Cannot eagles be tamed--made gentle and friendly?" old Mrs. Clifford
asked. "I think I remember hearing that you had a pet eagle years ago."

"Yes, I kept one--a female--six months. She was an unusually large
specimen, and measured about eight feet with wings extended. The females of
all birds of prey, you know, are larger than the males. As in the former
case, I had broken one of her wings, and she also threw herself on her back
and made her defence in the most savage manner. Although I took every
precaution in my power, my hands were bleeding in several places before I
reached home, and, in fact, she kept them in a rather dilapidated condition
all the time I had her. I placed her in a large empty room connected with
the barn, and found her ready enough to eat. Indeed, she was voracious, and
the savage manner in which she tore and swallowed her food was not a
pleasant spectacle. I bought several hundred live carp--a cheap, bony
fish--and put them in a ditch where I could take them with a net as I
wanted them. The eagle would spring upon a fish, take one of her long hops
into a corner, and tear off its head with one stroke of her beak. While I
was curing her broken wing the creature tolerated me after a fashion, but
when she was well she grew more and more savage and dangerous. Once a
Dutchman, who worked for us, came in with me, and the way the eagle chased
that man around the room and out of the door, he swearing meanwhile in high
German and in a high key, was a sight to remember. I was laughing
immoderately, when the bird swooped down on my shoulder, and the scars
would have been there to-day had not her talons been dulled by their