CHAPTER XVI 



THE WARDEN MEETS AN 

 INVADER 



HE bond between them had 

 kept Bannertail near his 

 mate, and her warning kept 

 him not too near. Yet it 

 was his daily wont to come 

 to the nesting tree and wait about, in 

 case of anything, he knew not what. 

 Thus it was that he heard a rustling 

 in the near-by limbs one day, then 

 caught a flash of red. A stranger ap- 

 proaching the tree of trees. All Ban- 

 nertail's fighting blood was aroused. He 

 leaped by well-known jumps, and coursed 

 along well-known overways, till he was 

 on the nesting tree, and undulated like a 



[105] 



