“Oh, Jack!” cried Edna. “Get up! Hurry! Run! It’s one of those cats from the men’s camp has got hold of poor Tom!”

Jack sprang out of bed, but caught his foot in the sheet, and landed on his elbow on the floor. Between rubbing his elbow and disentangling his foot, he wasted a good many seconds before he was up again. Then he dashed through the living room and out upon the porch.

All this time, which seemed an age, the squawking and fluttering increased, but as he flung open the door it ceased as suddenly as it had begun. The whole porch was bathed in the brightest moonlight, and at the farther end the perch was clearly visible, and on the floor beneath it was poor old Tom parrot, gasping amid a litter of his own feathers, and crying, “Oh! Oh! Oh!”

At any rate, he was alive. Jack looked right and left for traces of his assailant, and at once noticed the long heavy trailers of the trumpet vine were swinging violently, although there was not a breath of wind. He went to the rail and looked out and around, but there was no sign of a cat. Of course, it was not likely there would be. Jack was more interested in the fact that the swaying vines were spread over a length of several feet, which seemed a very great deal of disturbance for a fleeing cat to make. Finally, he looked up, and he thought he saw a bird—a big bird, an enormous bird—flying away. He just caught a glimpse of it as it crossed the brightness of the moon.

He turned back and picked up old Tom. The poor parrot’s chain was broken, and his heart was pounding away like mad, and still, like a creature hurt and shocked beyond all endurance, he cried, “Oh! Oh! Oh!”

This was all the more odd, for it was seldom the old fellow came out with a new phrase, and Jack would have laughed heartily, except it sounded too pathetic. So he carefully examined the poor bird, and, finding no injury beyond the loss of a handful of feathers from his neck, he replaced him on the perch, and turned to reassure Edna, who now appeared in the doorway.

“Is he dead?” cried she.

“No,” said Jack. “He’s had a bit of shock, though. Something got hold of him.”

“I’ll bring him a piece of sugar,” said Edna. “That’s what he loves. That’ll make him feel better.”

She soon brought the sugar, which Tom took in his claw, but though usually he would nibble it up with the greatest avidity, this time he turned his lackluster eye only once upon it, and gave a short, bitter, despairing sort of laugh, and let it fall to the ground.

“Let him rest,” said Jack. “He has had a bad tousling.”

“It was a cat,” said Edna. “It was one of those beastly cats the men have at the camp.”

“Maybe,” said Jack. “On the other hand—I don’t know. I thought I saw an enormous bird flying away.”

“It couldn’t be an eagle,” said Edna. “There are none ever seen here.”

“I know,” said Jack. “Besides, they don’t fly at night. Nor do the buzzards. It might have been an owl, I suppose.