Desperate Battle With A Bald Eagle

Desperate Battle With a Bald Eagle

While on a coon hunt recently with a party of friends in the Elleston woods, near Roseville, Ill., Harry T. Allen had a most exciting battle with a big eagle. Along about midnight the party heard the dogs baying and barking at a furious rate in the woods off toward the creek, a quarter of a mile away.

As the party approached the spot where the dogs were assembled they came to the conclusion that the dogs bad simply gone crazy, as they were not near a tree, but were instead running up and down the bank of the creek and barking at some big dark object on a stump ten or fifteen feet from the edge.

It was a dark night, and at first the coon hunters could not distinguish what the object was. Mr. Allen said it was a bird of some sort.

Taking his ax, he waded in toward the bird, while his companions held their torches high on the bank to give him as much light as possible. He says:

"I waded In toward the bird, intending to kill it with a knock on the head with the as, and I was a little bit hasty, as I feared it would fly away before I could get it. In my hurry to reach the bird I did not take the care I should, and is I struck at it with the ax my foot slipped and I fell.

"By the time I had recovered my footing the bird got into the game in earnest.

"The bird had a good nip on me, and it was close fighting, with the bird's huge wings going all the time like thrashing machines.

"I reached for its neck with my left hand and put a strangle on it to make the creature let go of my leg, and in that I was successful only in a measure. The bird loosened its hold with its beak and took hold of my hand with its claws. Its talons went clear through my left hand, and by that time I was as mad as the bird. I took a good purchase on my ax and aimed the next and last blow with some care and got the bird on the head.

"I dragged the whole outfit to the bank, and then the boys forced open the claw on my band and released me."

It was a bald eagle, and his wings measured 7 feet 2 inches.