"A bird?" repeated the Policeman, all eagerness.
"Must be the Bird!" declared the Man-Who-Makes-Faces, triumphantly.
It was. Even in the poor light her eager eyes made out the bumps on that small feathered head. And saw that on the down-drooping tail, nicely balanced, and gleaming whitely, was a lump.
Remembering what she had heard about that bit of salt, she ran forward. At her approach, his wings half-lifted. And as she reached out to him, pointing a small finger, he sprang sidewise, alighting upon it.
"Oh, I'm glad you've come!" he panted.
He was no larger than a canary; and seemed to be brown—a sparrow-brown. Prejudiced against him she had been. He had tattled about her—worse, about her father. Yet seeing him now, so tiny and ruffled and frightened, she liked him.
She brought him to a level with her eyes. "What's the matter?" she asked soothingly.
"I'm afraid." He thrust out his head, pointing. "Look."
She looked. Ahead the tops of the grass blades were swaying this way and that in a winding path—as if from the passage of some crawling thing!
"She tried to get me out of the way!"