ownward, a little olive-colored, speckled head
peeking cautiously out as if to see what all the rumpus was about.

It must have seemed to those little frightened eyes that the familiar
geography of the neighborhood was radically changed. But there was
nothing near to strike terror to it now. There was nothing near but the
green, enshrouding foliage, and the brown object hanging almost
motionless close by.

This was Hervey Willetts of the patrol of the blue scarf, scout of the
first class (if ever there was one) and winner of twenty-one merit
badges....

No, not twenty-one. Twenty and two-thirds.

CHAPTER IX

TO INTRODUCE ORESTES

Hervey moved cautiously in along the limb to a point where he felt sure
that it would hold his weight, and as he did so it moved slowly up into
place. What the little householder thought of all this topsy-turvy
business it might be amusing to know. For surely, if the world war
changed the map of Europe, the little neighborhood of leaf and branch
where this timid denizen of the woods lived and had its being, had been
subject to jolts and changes quite as sweeping. Now and again it poked
its downy speckled head out for a kind of disinterested squint at
things, apparently unconcerned with mighty upheavals so long as its
little home was undisturbed.

Hervey Willetts straddled the branch and calculated the thickness of
it.

"You all right?" he heard Tom call from below.

"Yop," he called back; "did you see his nobs fly away? Back to the crags
for him, hey? Wait down there a few minutes, I'm going to bring a
friend."

Hervey had now a very nice little calculation to make. In the first
place he must not frighten his new acquaintance by approaching too near
again. Neither must he make any sudden and unnecessary noise or motions.
He knew that a nest of that particular sort was more than a home, it was
a comparatively safe refuge, and he knew that its occupant would not
emerge and desert it without good cause. One of those precious twenty
badges was evidence of that much knowledge.

His purpose was to cut the branch as near to the nest as he dared, both
from the standpoint of the bird's peace of mind and his own safety. The
further from the nest he cut, the thicker would be the branch, and the
more cutting there would be to do. To cut too near to the nest might
frighten his little neighbor on the branch, and endanger his own life.

Yet if he cut the branch where it was thick, how