"It was just lucky, of course, that day when they went exploring in the
patch of dark woods down in the valley, that the big brown owl did not
get one or the other of them. He was asleep on a big dead branch as
brown as himself, and looking so like a part of it that they were just
going to alight, either upon him or within reach of his deadly clutch,
when a red squirrel saw them and shrieked at them. Two great, round,
glaring orange eyes opened upon them from that brown prong of the
branch, so suddenly that they gave two startled squawks and nearly fell
to the ground. How the red squirrel tittered, hating both the owl and
the crows. But the imps, when they got over their start, were furious.
Flying over the owl's head, they kept screaming at the top of their
voices something which probably meant 'an owl! an owl! an owl!'; and
immediately every other crow within hearing took up the cry, till in
two minutes half the flock were gathered in the patch of woods. They
swarmed screaming about the owl's head, striking at him with their
sharp beaks and strong black wings, but always too wary to come quite
within his reach. The great night prowler knew that in the daylight he
could not catch them--that, indeed, if he did succeed in catching one
in his claws the others would throw caution to the winds and all be
down upon him at once.
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