"Good Lord!" cried one of the scared thieves, "I trust we——"
"No trust! no trust!" came in the same hoarse voice, "Mind the reckoning! Mind the reckoning!"
Away went the scared thieves, through the window and over the garden wall, leaving their tools behind them, while the daw roused the house with its screams of delight over their flight.
The fashion of stealing of the crow tribe makes a pet crow not very safe to keep about. Any bright or shining thing, like a pair of scissors, a silver spoon, or a gold stud, is sure to take his fancy and when once in his beak the chance is that it will never be seen again, for he is a cute chap at hiding his spoils.
The crow indeed is a sharp fellow in more ways than one. He is an expert at tricks. Here is one told of the Indian crow.
A dog—a fox-terrier of good training—was one day gnawing a chicken bone on the veranda when two crows saw him at his meal and lighted on the veranda railing, where they began to croak. The very sight of a crow is usually enough to make a dog forget his breakfast and fly at the bird; but this time Jack merely growled and kept on gnawing.
As this did not work, one of the birds dropped down to the veranda floor and croaked again. Again Jack growled, but he went on gnawing. The crow now strolled round the veranda for a minute till the dog was intent on his bone, then hopped up and gave his tail a sharp nip.
This was too much for the fox-terrier. With a howl of pain he turned upon the bird, when the other crow, which had been quietly waiting its chance, swooped down, snatched up the bone, and flew away, its comrade in mischief quickly joining it.
Jack's look of disgust, when he found how neatly he had been fooled by a pair of crows, was a sight worth seeing.