s."

The two Headmen went back to their villages, and that very day each
told at the council what tribute the King had ordered them to send.
"The King of the Birds," said the people of Half-a-Loaf, "that's the
Eagle surely." "The King of the Birds," said the people of Windy-Gap.
"What Bird might that be? We'll have to give thought to this."

The people of Windy-Gap thought about it and thought about it, but the
people of Half-a-Loaf declared there was no doubt at all about it--the
Eagle was the King of the Birds. And while the people of Windy-Gap
were thinking and pondering the people of Half-a-Loaf were sending
their young men off to catch an eagle.

But an eagle is a hard fowl to catch, and the people of Half-a-Loaf
found they had to send all of their young men out and to send them out
every day. And the young men climbed high hills and stony ditches, and
they searched the east and they hunted the west; they went out at
sunrise and they came back at sunset, but never an eagle did they
bring with them.

"It may be that the Eagle is the King of the Birds," said the people
of Windy-Gap, "but we had better consider it."

They thought about it from sunrise to sunset; they thought about it
while they plowed their fields and sowed them, while they spun their
cloth and made their coats, while they mended their nets and mended
their shoes, while they thatched their roofs and planted their
apple-trees.

And in Half-a-Loaf there was few left to plow the fields and sow them,
to spin cloth and to make coats, to mend nets and to mend shoes, to
thatch roofs and to plant apple-trees--there was few left to do these
things for all the young men were out on the mountain hunting for an
eagle.

"The people of Windy-Gap will be ruined," said the people of
Half-a-Loaf, "they have done nothing yet to catch the Eagle. When the
King gets no tribute from them he'll come down and sell them and their
village. Call the young men back that have gone into the fields to
work and send them up the mountain again."

At last the people of Half-a-Loaf caught their Eagle--a great golden
Eagle he was. They built for him a shed and they fed him on what lambs
they had that year.

"We're safe anyway," said the people of Half-a-Loaf, "but the
unfortunate folk in Windy-Gap have lost their chance. They'll not have
time to catch an eagle now."

The time was coming near when the two villages would have to send
their tribute to the King.

"We have ou