next morning the robins were in an awful flutter when they came down to drink. and when a robin is excited he just has to tell everybody all about it—you’ve heard them, lots of times, though you don’t always understand them. bobby took his bath in a great splatter and then flew over to talk with watch while he fixed his feathers.
he caught sight of chaik jay all huddled up on the bottom branch of a bush. his poor hurt wing, that he struck when he went tail over crest in the black dark, was drooping.
“whew!” whistled bobby. “chaik looks like i feel, too mussed up to know my beak from my back toe-claw. we didn’t sleep a wink last night, over at the roost; terrible things were happening.”
“quick!” snapped watch; “what did happen?”
it seemed to him that killer the weasel was standing right beside him. he had to sniff to make sure he wasn’t. he was so excited that his back hair was as stiff as it gets when he wants to fight.
“well, last night, when it was black, black dark,” began bobby in a scary whisper, “we heard a cry, as though some bird were having a bad dream. then everything was quiet, and we settled down to sleep again. pretty soon we were waked up the very same way. it happened over and over. i had my eyes wide open a dozen times, but i couldn’t see a single thing. and my ears are sharp, but i couldn’t even hear anything. yet this morning a dozen families report some bird is missing. you don’t think a ghost bird could have taken them?” he meant the big white owl who sometimes comes down from the far north, where the storms grow, and snatches the sleeping folks out of their pine-tree perches. but that only happens in the winter time.
“it was killer the weasel, of course,” sniffed watch.
“no, it wasn’t,” argued bobby. “killer’s been there half-a-dozen times, but he always leaves dead birds scattered around on the ground to scare us.”
“then it was the bad little owls,” said watch.
“they wouldn’t dare!” exclaimed bobby, ruffling up his feathers. “what do you take us for, a flock of sparrows?”
“a flock of foolish heads!” watch snapped back impatiently. “it serves you right. why do you keep on perching there if killer knows right where you are?”
bobby stared at him with round eyes. “if we did move, how would the new birds who come in on every wind find out where we are? eh? how would we get together for the long flight? we robins stick to the robins’ roost so long as there’s a bird left alive to perch there.”
“um-m,” said watch thoughtfully. “it would be inconvenient. i see that now. but why don’t you fly along?”
“my wings!” bobby almost hopped at the idea. “it’s easy to see you don’t know what business this long flight is. we can’t all go together—we wouldn’t find enough to feed all of us along the road. we can’t afford to spend all day hunting our food as we do here. and a fine mixup it would be if every bird left just when the whim took him. we leave in regular turn. mother nature gives us our first signal when the leaves do the butterfly dance (he meant when they turn gay colours and fall) and our last party takes wing at the turn of the worm.” (that’s when the worms dig down below the icy ground for their winter sleep.)
“i see,” watch nodded. “well, then, we’ll just find out who it is and nip his tail for him. come along.”
bobby robin really felt quite comforted when watch seemed ready to help him—those hundreds and hundreds of birds who weigh down the great elm tree before they get their signal from mother nature to fly south are a terrible responsibility. but he didn’t see just exactly what watch could do about it. he dipped along beside the dog’s long, easy run for a minute or so. then he broke out again, “but i can’t think who it could have been.”
“it was killer the weasel or the owls,” watch answered. “i’ll bet you on it.”
“what’ll you bet?” bobby demanded with a sidewise quirk of his head—that is the way he smiles. “i’m a pretty old bird. i’ve been hunted by weasels and cats and hawks and foxes and big owls and little ones ever since i first grew feathers, but never have i known the like of this.”
“i’ll bet you a bone,” watch began. then he wiped out the idea with a sweep of his tail. “foolish me! i forgot you haven’t teeth. well, i’ll bet you a nice soft bread-crust i can lay me paw on. i buried it yesterday—to keep those thieves of chickens from stealing it.”
“i’ll take you,” giggled bobby. “and i’ll bet you a whole nest of furry caterpillars it wasn’t either of them.”
“what’ll i do with the caterpillars?” sniffed watch. “wear ’em in my whiskers?”
bobby just had to laugh, but he got all sober and discouraged again the next minute. “i don’t see how we’re going to decide, anyhow,” he sighed. “it happened hours ago—long before the sun began to spread his wings.” (birds say the long streaks you see in the east at sunrise are the sun’s wings flapping before he soars across the sky.) “and it was so crow dark nobody could see anything.”
“that doesn’t matter,” said watch cheerfully. “i don’t have to see. seeing’s no good the minute after a thing has happened. hearing isn’t any better. but i can smell! m-m-m!” he sniffed softly. “and when a fellow can smell he can see with his nose just who has been there and what they did long after they’ve gone. listen!” he laid his nose to the trunk of the roosting elm. “killer!” he exclaimed. “here he climbed up. here he came down. here he walked out below this limb. here—here—owl! bobby. plain as day i do smell owl!”
“fur and feathers working together,” sobbed bobby. “what chance have we poor birds? what won’t they do to us to-night?”
“well, you’re feathers and i’m fur,” argued watch. “can’t we do something, too?”
and that made bobby so happy again he just had to flap his wings over it.
but watch was thoughtful.
“now listen to me, bobby,” he said at last. “if killer and the bad little owls are going to hunt together, we woodsfolk are going to have trouble, aren’t we? trouble afoot and awing.” he licked his nose, as though he were trying to smell out the thing to do next.
“trouble afoot is the only thing i’m afraid of,” cheeped bobby. “those owls can’t do anything alone; i thought you were going to nip killer’s tail for him. wasn’t that what you said?” he sounded all discouraged again.
“now don’t get flutter-headed,” warned watch. “so i am. but i have to get my teeth on it, don’t i? and that means i have to catch the cleverest, craftiest of all things from under-the-earth. yes, and the wickedest. it gives me the creeps to think about him.”
“by the great grub who gnawed the moon!” gasped the bird, leaning over to get a good look at the big dog. “you talk as though you were afraid of him—a great big beast like you afraid of a slinky little thing like him!”
and then watch repeated exactly what killer had told the wife of the bad little owl. “it isn’t size, it’s brains. nobody is really safe from him. i’m ever so much bigger than doctor muskrat or even tad coon. but if killer caught me while i was asleep and got his weasel hold under my chin, even i couldn’t bite him back. he’s so small i couldn’t reach him.”
“that’s so!” exclaimed bobby. “you’d be no safer than a bird.”
“oh, yes, i am,” watch was fair enough to explain. “i’m the last beast in all the woods he’d try it on. my ears are wide, and my nose is wet, and my long, stiff coat feels every stir in the grass. i wake up with a jump before i know whether i heard or smelled or felt what was coming. but killer is quieter than a pad-footed pussy. he can hide his scent like a nesting quail, and he can see where he’s stepping. that’s why he never hunts fair. he’s all bite and no fight.”
“he certainly is!” agreed the bird.
“ah, but here’s the point,” the old dog went on. “we know who we’re hunting, and he doesn’t know we know. we won’t let him. then we’ve got trouble down a mouse hole. we’ll hunt him like the pussycat hunts them—pretend we aren’t paying any attention and be all ready to pounce on him. a still tongue and a waving tail is the way to trail trouble whenever you find it. not a cheep until the time comes!”
and this time bobby robin didn’t answer—not with his tongue. he just wagged his long tail up and down so very hard that his whole perch wagged with him.
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