This was true enough. The penguins had not seemed to resent their nests being interfered with at all, but had gathered round the invaders with much curiosity. The trouble all originated when Rastus had sneaked up to a small penguin while the professor was busy extracting an egg from a nest, and with a cry of:
"Oh, you lubly lilly chickin, ah hev yo fer supper, sho nuff," had grabbed the creature.
It instantly sent up a loud cry of fear and rage, which its mates seemed to regard as a battle cry, for they all fell on the rash invaders of their realm at once.
As the boys dashed down the snowbank into the rookery, with their revolvers drawn, the professor, with a loud yell, fell backward into a well-filled nest. He arose with yellow yolks streaming from him and covered with down, feathers and eggshell, that made him look like a spectacled penguin himself. Rastus fared no better and was being beaten and pecked unmercifully when the boys rushed down to the rescue.
"Fire your revolvers in the air!" cried Frank. "Don't kill the poor things."
"Fo' goodness sake kill dis big feller dat's a-peckin' mah nose off!" yelled Rastus, struggling on the ground in the midst of a mass of broken eggs.
The fusillade that went up from the boys' pistols made the penguins stop their attack and waddle off in affright, while the professor and Rastus, both sorry figures, scrambled to their feet and tried to brush off some of the eggshells and yellow yolks that covered them from head to foot.
"Come on back to the auto," cried Frank, when he saw they were safe.
"What, aren't you going to kill some of the birds?" demanded the professor.
"No, certainly not," replied Frank. "What for?"