Not since the treacherous Gauley river rose suddenly in the night and swept scores of the mountaineers living along its banks to death in its icy waters, has Webster county been so excited as it is at present. From away down on Cherry river to the remotest settlements on Sugar run, in the upper part of the county, the mountaineers are talking of the gigantic bird which has been terrorizing this section for the past week or ten days.
    About two weeks ago a child of Dan Junkins, who lives over on Bergoo, some fifteen miles from this place, suddenly disappeared in a manner which for a time puzzled the oldest hunters and woodsmen of the county. It is now regarded as an absolute certainty that the child, a little girl of ten years, fell a prey to the winged monstrosity which for want of a better name the mountaineers call an eagle.
    Little Landy was sent by her mother one Friday afternoon to the cabin of Joe Warnick, a mile and a half south of that of Junkins’, to ask after Mrs. Warnick, who had been sick. The girl started soon after noon for the Warnick cabin, but never reached there, and vanished as completely as if she had been spirited away by supernatural power. As Landy did not return by 4 or 5 o’clock Mrs. Junkins grew uneasy and sent her husband to look for her. He thought, perhaps, she had remained with the Warnicks, and went straight to the cabin. There he learned that the child had not been there. By that time it had become dark, and, assisted by the Warnicks, Junkins started to hunt his daughter. Nothing could be seen of her, and the whole party returned to the Junking cabin. As there were several inches of snow on the ground, the tracks of Landy could be plainly followed. They were followed to a point within half a mile of the Warnick cabin, where they suddenly disappeared, and could not be seen any further. The point where they stopped was in a cleared field, where buckwheat had been grown last season.
    The child must evidently have been frightened at something, for the tracks left the path, and where they stopped were some 15 or 20 feet away from it. There were a number of her tracks together, as if she had turned around and around, while trying to avoid something. Beyond this point the footprints disappeared. The search was continued far into the night, and the surrounding forest was scoured as far as possible, as it was thought the child might have wandered from the path. The searchers were compelled to return to the almost distracted mother with the news that the missing child had not been found.
    The next day the search was continued by a number of others, who had heard the story, and come to volunteer their services. Search as closely as they could, beyond the footprints in the snow at the point near the path, they could not be followed further. How the child could have vanished and left no further trace puzzled every one. If she had been seized by a wild animal, its tracks would surely have been left in the snow, but there was nothing of the kind. There was no explanation to he offered, and the mystery of the disappearance was not revealed until several days later.

    Peter Swadley, a noted bear hunter of Webster, is now in the village being treated for the wounds he recived from the huge bird over on Laurel creek day before yesterday. He is still in a precarious condition from the encounter. Swadley was brought to Addison by Abe Kitsmiller on the afternoon of the day it happened. Swadley was hunting a bear over on Piney ridge, and had his dog Gunner with him. The two were tracking a bear, whose haunts Swadley had known for some days, through the laurel on the mountain side, when he came into a little clearing, and suddenly without other warning than a scream louder than that of a panther, which Swadley thought at first had jumped on him, the immense feathered creature swooped down with the evident intention of bearing him off. The bird dug its talons in his back, tearing his coat into shreds, and for some minutes there was a fierce fight in the snow. Swadley lost his rifle, and did not get a chance to use his hunting knife.
    Though he is a large, powerfully built man he had no chance with his bare hands, and his wounds show what a fight for life it must have been. One of the worst wounds the hunter received was over the left eye, where the scalp was torn away for at least three inches, making a terrible wound. Swadley still managed to retain his footing in the snow, though nearly unconscious, and strove to ward off the blows of the eagle’s talons, which nearly tore him to pieces. Swadley’s dog Gunner was probably the only thing that saved him from being killed. The dog was off from its master when the bird attacked him, but when Swadley shouted it returned and made for the eagle. The latter turned from the man to the dog, and Swadley says with the stroke of its powerful claws ripped open its stomach and flew away with the poor creature whining in its talons. Almost blinded by the blood which flowed from the wound over his eye, the hunter contrived to find his way down the mountain side to the cabin of Abe Kitsmiller, on Little Laurel creek, a mile or more from the place of conflict. He stumbled into the cabin nearly dead from the loss of blood. Kitsmiller was at home, and after he had bound up Swadley’s wounds as well as he could, he put him on a horse and brought him to Addison.
    Owing to the fact that the bird came on him so suddenly, and nearly blinded him at the outset by the blow on the head, Swadley is not able to give much of a description of it. Its strength, however, he declares, was prodigious, and twice he was lifted off his feet by its onslaughts. Its body, he says, is as large as that of a man. “Ef it was to come ez ter how I should have ter pick atwixt a painter [panther, colloq.] and the varmint, in fair hand-to-hand fight, I should take the painter every time,” he said in telling of the affair.

From— The Evening Star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.), 16 March 1895. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.