body. A big dog came bounding
toward her. The man was reloading his gun, a few paces away.

"Call off your dog!" shouted Twinkle, wildly excited. "How dare you
shoot the poor, harmless birds? Call off your dog, I say!"

But, even as she spoke, the words sounded in her own ears strange and
unnatural, and more like the chirping of a bird than the language of
men. The hunter either did not hear her or he did not understand her,
and the dog snarled and bared its wicked teeth as it sprang greedily
upon the child-lark.

Twinkle was too terrified to move. She glared upon the approaching
monster helplessly, and it had almost reached her when a black object
fell from the skies with the swiftness of a lightning streak and struck
the dog's back, tearing the flesh with its powerful talons and driving
a stout, merciless beak straight through the skull of the savage brute.

The dog, already dead, straightened out and twitched convulsively. The
man shouted angrily and sprang upon the huge bird that had slain his
pet, at the same time swinging his gun like a club.

"Quick!" said the eagle to Twinkle, "mount with me as swiftly as you
can."

With the words he rose into the air and Twinkle darted after him, while
Chubbins, seeing their flight from his nest, joined them just in time
to escape a shot from the boy's deadly gun.

The inquisitive squirrel, however, had stuck his head out to see what
was happening, and one of the leaden bullets buried itself in his
breast. Chubbins saw him fall back into his hollow and heard his
agonized scream; but he could not stay to help his poor friend. An
instant later he had joined the eagle and Twinkle, and was flying as
hard and swift as his wonderful lark wings could carry him up, up into
the blue sky.

The sunshine touched them now, while below the tragic forest still lay
buried in gloom.

"We are quite safe here, for I am sure no shot from a gun could reach
us," said the eagle. "So let us rest upon our wings for a while. How
lucky it was that I happened to be around in time to rescue you, my
little friends."

"I am very grateful, indeed," answered Twinkle, holding her wings
outstretched so that she floated lightly in the air beside her rescuer.
"If you had been an instant later, the dog would have killed me."

"Very true," returned the eagle. "I saw your danger while I was in the
air, and determined to act quickly, although I might myself have been
shot by the man had his gun been load