“Shoo!” he cried, and sent it skimming through the air at the puma.
The effect was all he desired, for the beautiful animal sprang round and bounded away towards the nearest patch of forest, Pete after him till he reached his hat, which he picked up in triumph and stuck on his head again, grinning as he returned.
“That’s the way to scare that sort, Master Nat,” he cried. And he reached me again just as I stooped to pick up the fallen bird.
“Cock of the Rocks, Pete,” I cried triumphantly, too much excited to think about the puma.
“Is he, sir?” said Pete. “Well, he ran away like a hen.”
“No, no! I mean this bird. Isn’t it a beauty?”
“He just is, sir. Lives on oranges, I s’pose, to make him that colour.”
“I don’t know what it lived on,” I said as I regularly gloated over the lovely bird with its orange plumage and soft wheel-like crest of feathers from beak to nape. “This must go in your net, Pete; but you must carry it very carefully.”
“I will, Master Nat. Going back now?”
“Back? No,” I cried. “We must follow up that other one. I saw which way it flew. Uncle will be in ecstasies at our having found a place where they come.”