enormous creature. He had never seen its like before. It seemed all head
and tail. Two great eyes stared at Sandy Chipmunk and sent a chill of
fear over him. The monster's wide mouth grinned at him cruelly. And its
long tail lashed back and forth as if its owner were very angry. Even as
Sandy looked at the creature it gave a horrid scream.

Sandy Chipmunk did not wait for anything else. He turned and ran home.
And a few of his friends who happened to see him remarked that he seemed
to be in a greater hurry than ever.

Sandy felt better when he found himself safe in his mother's house. And
he told Mrs. Chipmunk what he had seen.

"It may be an owl," he said, "because it has big, round eyes. But its
tail was not like any owl's tail that I ever saw. It was like six
catamounts' tails, all tied in knots."

"That's queer!" his mother remarked. "I never knew of a bird with a tail
like that."

"Maybe it's a beast that has learned to fly," Sandy suggested.

"Beasts can't fly," Mrs. Chipmunk said.

But Sandy knew better than that.

"There's the Flying-Squirrel family," he reminded her.

"They can only fly from one tree to another," his mother told him. "I
think I'll peep out and see for myself what this strange creature looks