you know quail live together in the winter but separate when they nest in the spring. they mostly settle near enough together so that when anything goes wrong the covey call can bring them all in. they help each other if they can; if they can’t at least they learn about the danger to those precious nests of their own.
but when bob white’s wife gave that horrified “prr-whit!” that a quail’s ears can hear so far, her own husband did not come. the other birds might scatter all over the woods and fields calling anxiously, “bob white, bob white, oh, bob white!” but he did not answer.
nibble was the only one who knew for sure who had taken the eggs. he didn’t tell on stripes skunk—not yet, for fear the little owls would hear of it. he called chaik jay and whispered, “tell watch the dog to find my trail and follow it.” then he set out after stripes. “that bad killer knows what happened to bob,” he said to himself. “i’m glad i didn’t let him fool me a second time. he wanted me to persuade bob’s wife to go back to her nest and trust him—then he’d have caught her, and maybe i wouldn’t be in trouble! just maybe!” and he ran as fast as ever he could.
but he was only half right. stripes did know what had happened to bob white, but he wasn’t to blame for it. instead he was doing his best to help the poor bird. he was waddling back to the quail’s thicket with his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth and his long hairy tail waggling because he was too winded to gallop.
nibble ran right straight into him. the first thing he said was, “what are you doing here?” and the next was “what about bob white quail?”
and wasn’t stripes s’prised? “how ever did you hear?” he gasped. “i haven’t seen a single wing i could send for help, so i’ve ’most burst my sides coming after you my own self. he’s hanging upside down from a little tree. he’ll die if you don’t get him down soon. hurry! hurry!”
hurry! you just better believe nibble did. he knew what that meant. bob was caught in exactly the same kind of a snare that tommy peele had set for nibble. you remember he fastened a wire noose to the tip end of a springy sapling, and then he bent it over and pegged it down. the minute anything touched it, swish went the sapling and swish went whatever was caught in that wicked wire. this one had tight hold of bob white’s foot, and there he hung with his head limp and his wings just weakly fluttering.
bob white was caught in tommy peele’s snare.
“i guess i’ll have to try to gnaw through this tree,” said nibble anxiously. “i simply can’t climb.” and he looked at his furry feet that are made to run.
stripes looked at them, too, and then he looked at his own. you remember the queer tracks he left up by the barn. his front feet were like a dog’s but his hind ones were something like tad coon’s, and you know how tad could climb! “i never tried it,” he murmured doubtfully, “but maybe i can.”
nibble almost squealed. “if you can get up there and bend that top down——” and right then stripes clambered up on a log and sprang. he caught in the lower branches, and then he began—well, tad coon or chatter squirrel would never have called it climbing! it was scratch and scramble and grunt and whine, but he kept right on. and the higher he went the lower the sapling leaned. down, down came bob white till he lay on the ground. nibble had hardly touched his teeth to that wicked wire when it let go its hold and bob white was free. and just about then stripes skunk let go, too, and came tumbling down on top of them.
there lay bob white, too weak to fly, his eyes closed, and his poor little thirsty beak half open. “now,” thought nibble, “that skunk is going to try and eat him.” of course that’s what any bad thing-from-under-the-earth would do.
but stripes didn’t. all that he scrunched was a couple of fat wood snails. pretty soon he found what he was looking for—a fat, juicy grub. he knew bob white would like it because skunks and birds eat so many of the same things. and bob white did. the minute he smelled it he opened his eyes, and then he opened his beak. my, but that grub felt cool and moist on his tongue when he gulped it in! but didn’t he start when he saw who had given it to him?
and didn’t nibble rabbit prick up his ears when he heard what stripes skunk was saying? “i broke up your nest and stole your eggs this morning,” he told bob white. “i thought maybe i’d pay you back even if i can’t be trusted to kill mice and potato bugs to pay back for those chickens of tommy peele’s i killed.” he still talked in his whiny, discouraged voice.
“what’s that?” cheeped bob. he simply couldn’t believe his ears. “well, i’ll be feathered! i’d as soon expect the great horned owl to tell me such a thing. eggs? you’re perfectly welcome. it’s not too late to nest over again. but for a skunk you’re certainly queer.”
“i—i—feel queer,” said stripes in a funny, high voice, as though he were going to cry. “i feel queer and different.”
“you just feel happy,” said nibble. “and you’ll feel happier yet when you’ve fixed those potato bugs for tommy.”
