“You won’t, either,” snapped Bob White. “You saved me from dying in that wire snare. I haven’t forgotten that. Besides, those potato bugs are some of my own business. Get Doctor Muskrat to give you some medicine and then come and see what we quail-folk are doing.” He raised the covey-call, “Prr-whit! Prr-whit!” and off he flew to the Quail’s Thicket.
It didn’t take Bob White long to lay down the law to the quail-folk. In about the time it takes to swallow a seed they were whirring off in every direction. Bob White himself went to find those fly-away meadowlarks. “What do you mean by deserting like that in the face of the potato bug army?” he demanded. My, but his voice sounded pecky!
“We flew away because that terrible skunk came to help them,” fluttered the larks. “There was no use trying to fight him!”
“You didn’t have to fight him,” raged Bob White. “You only had to fight with him. You foolish, cowardly tip-tails! He’d come to help you!”
“To help us?” squawked the meadowlarks. “That beast! That beast who smashes our eggs and kills our mates and eats our young? We’d as soon expect help of Glider the Blacksnake.”
“You would, would you?” Bob White’s beak clicked dangerously.
“Well, it’s time you learned that skunk is a special one. He saved my life, and all the quail trust him. You get every meadowlark in all the woods and fields and the marsh beyond and go back to your fighting. Hear me?” And he looked so ruffly they didn’t even dare to answer him.
CHAPTER VII
THE BIRDS ENLIST IN THE WAR
The next one to find poor sick after Bob White Quail had flown away, was Nibble Rabbit. “Hey, Stripes,” he said, “whatever is the matter?”
“I tried to eat all the potato bugs to keep my promise to help Tommy Peele—’deed and I did, Nibble. But I got too many inside of me all at once. They squirm and sting!”