“Down! Everybody down! Down as fast as you can fly,” ordered the old soldier in a panic. He himself could feel his feathers turning to clothes and his wings seemed too light to hold up his body. Half flying and half falling, half people and half crows, the little company shot downward, and it is mighty lucky they started down when they did. As it was, they turned back to themselves and landed at one and the same minute, and the landing was so hard that, for a moment, no one spoke at all. The old soldier broke the silence.
“Why, there’s Bill,” cried Grampa, who was sitting calmly in the middle of a yellow rose bush. He had grown somewhat used to falling about by this time. “How do you feel, Bill?” asked the old soldier, extracting several thorns from his person.
“How do I look?” asked the weather cock anxiously.
“Handsome as ever,” said Grampa, eying him closely. “Being invisible hasn’t hurt you at all, and how are the rest of my old cronies?”
“I’m all right,” smiled Urtha, jumping up lightly. The little flower maiden was looking as beautiful as ever.
“So am I,” said Tatters, “but I’d like to know how we happened to turn crow, and whether it’s going to happen often. You know, Grampa, it would be mighty inconvenient to be turning backwards and forwards any minute. I am sure it would be very unpleasant.”
“Well, it helped us over a couple of bad places,” mused the old soldier. “The mischief, boys! I’ve lost my pipe!” Grampa clapped one hand to his pocket and the other to his chin.
“You dropped it when you were a crow,” Tatters reminded him. Grampa did not answer, for out of his pocket he had drawn the blue tobacco pouch of Vaga, the bandit. In the excitement following Bill’s disappearance all the tobacco had spilled out, but the pouch Grampa had thrust into his pocket just before he turned crow. Here, at any rate, it was, and on the flap this amazing sentence: “To turn people to crows, smoke this tobacco. One puff will keep a company of captives crows for one hour, two puffs, two hours, three puffs for three hours, and so on.”
“So that’s the reason there were so many crows in the blue forest!” shouted Grampa indignantly. “So that’s why we turned to crows. It’s three hours to the minute,” he puffed, pulling out his watch.