Sandy Chipmunk did not wait for anything else. He turned and ran home. And a few of his friends who happened to see him remarked that he seemed to be in a greater hurry than ever.
Sandy felt better when he found himself safe in his mother's house. And he told Mrs. Chipmunk what he had seen.
"It may be an owl," he said, "because it has big, round eyes. But its tail was not like any owl's tail that I ever saw. It was like six catamounts' tails, all tied in knots."
"That's queer!" his mother remarked. "I never knew of a bird with a tail like that."
"Maybe it's a beast that has learned to fly," Sandy suggested.
"Beasts can't fly," Mrs. Chipmunk said.
But Sandy knew better than that.
"There's the Flying-Squirrel family," he reminded her.
"They can only fly from one tree to another," his mother told him. "I think I'll peep out and see for myself what this strange creature looks like."
He begged her not to. But Mrs. Chipmunk said she would be careful. And she went out and looked up at the sky.