“No, it isn’t,” squawked Chaik. “Look up in that pickery pea-tree.” (He meant an acacia with long spiky thorns and blossoms like garden peas strung in tassels.)
Stripes squinted—he isn’t used to looking up—and finally shaded his eye under his paw. “What about it?” he asked in a puzzled way.
“Why, Bob White has it all filled with fighting kingbirds. They’d fly at an enemy and peck his eyes out. And if the hawk chased them they’d hide in the prickers where he couldn’t possibly catch them. The hawk knows—I say, Stripes, what do you suppose that Thrasher is telling them? They’re looking straight at us-”
But before Stripes could even think, Jenny Wren began to squawk, twice as loudly as before, “Murder! Help! Help!”
CHAPTER VIII
THE BATTLE OF THE CROOK TAILED SNAKE
Jenny’s call gave Stripes a fine scare. Chaik had just finished warning him not to let the other birds know he was there. And they’d just begun to suspect that Coquillicot the Thrasher had seen them, because they’d seen Coquillicot fly up and tell something to the Kingbird Guard. All the kingbirds had begun peering down at them, and just then——
“Murder! Help!” went Jenny Wren.
Stripes hadn’t done a single thing to her, but there wasn’t going to be any time for explaining and arguing. Those kingbirds were ready to peck someone’s eyes out—there wasn’t any doubt of that! The red feathers on their heads stood straight on end as they came swooping down, whooping their war cry. They came like hailstones falling from a great black cloud—hailstones with beaks and claws! It was scary!
“Hide!” gasped Chaik and took to his wings. But poor Stripes could not fly; all he could do was to squirm a little closer under the thickest, shadiest branches. And right close beside him a birdy voice said, “Look out. Don’t wiggle so. You all but set your clumsy claws right on me.”
“Oh!” (Stripes was most too surprised to stay scared.) “I didn’t m-mean to,” he stammered, and he stood there on three legs, with a hind paw held up in the air, most awkward and ridiculous, craning his neck to see who it was.