"What are you going to do with him, Rose?" asked Vi. "Let him go when his wing is well." "But I guess he doesn't know that," said Laddie. "If he did he'd feel better about it." "He bites," said Mun Bun reflectively. "I'd rather have Alexis. Alexis doesn't bite." "Alexis would bite if he thought anybody was going to hurt him," said Russ. "But we can't make this eagle understand." "Why not?" immediately demanded Vi. "Because we can't talk bird-talk," replied Rose, giggling. "When I go to school I'll learn bird-talk," announced Mun Bun. "And I'll learn to talk dog-talk and cat-talk, too. Then they'll all know what I mean." "That is a splendid idea, dear," Rose said warmly. "You do just that." "S'posing they don't teach those languages where you go to school, Mun Bun?" suggested Laddie gravely. "I guess they don't in all schools. They don't in the Pineville school, do they, Russ?" "I'll ask Mother to send me to a school where they do," declared Mun Bun before Russ could reply. "I don't need to learn to talk our kind of talk. I know that already. But birds and dogs and cats are different." "You talk pretty good, I guess, Mun Bun," said Russ. Mun Bun was quite proud of this. He did not know that he often said "t" for "c" and "w" for "r." "But you will be a long time learning to speak so that this bird could understand." "Well, I shall try," the littlest Bunker declared confidently. Anyhow, it was decided that the sea-eagle would have to be released before Mun Bun learned to talk the eagle language. The quartermaster who was Russ and Rose's particular friend, came along with some raw meat scraps for the big bird; but the children had to go to breakfast before the bird gobbled these up. He was very shy. Later in the forenoon Russ and Rose were walking along the deck near a little house amidships and they heard a funny crackling sound--a crackling and snapping like a fresh wood fire. They stopped and looked all around. "I don't see any smoke," said Russ. "But there's a fire somewhere." "What is that mast with the wires up there for, Russ?" asked his sister, looking upward. "Oh! Daddy told me that was the wireless mast," Russ exclaimed. "But that can't be," said Rose warmly. "It has wires hitched to it; so it can't be wire_less_." "You know, Rose, they talk from ship to ship, and to the shore, by wireless." "What does that mean?" returned the girl. "A telegraph?" "That's it!" cried Russ. "And I guess that is what the crackling is. Listen!" "Isn't it a fire, then, that we hear?" for the crackling sound continued. "That's the electric spark," said her brother eagerly. "That is what it must be. Let's peep into this room, Rose. It is where the telegraph machine is."