It was Tony who learned about it first, so he told Papita one night before they went to sleep, up aloft in their shack, where the stars had a way of peeping in through the board roof and winking at them. "Those men with guns, Papita, I don't like," complained Tony bitterly. "They shoot all our birds in the swamp. Once I see _long, white feathers_. They're angel bird feathers, I think, only not white--no, all black with swamp mire. I see plenty and _some were red_, Papita, red with blood. One man, the big one, he laugh and say, 'Plenty money for these fine plumes.'" "What for they get those angel bird feathers, Tony?" asked Papita anxiously. "Huh, I hear grand ladies buy white angel feathers, to make them fine," replied Tony. "But _no one_ could ever be so beautiful as our angel birds." "Oh, Tony, what if these bad men shoot _our_ angel birds?" Papita's voice trembled. "I know, but wait; to-morrow we go at sunrise, quick, to the bird place," spoke Tony. As soon as they neared the bird island the next morning they knew some one had broken through the jungles, for the vines were torn aside and the birds, still disturbed, were circling and screaming wildly about the pond. The first thing they looked for was the egret's nest. Perched upon the edge of the nest were the baby egrets alone, screaming shrilly, "Kek, kek, kek," calling vainly now for their parents, and to be fed; they wanted their breakfast. Tony and Papita waited some time, but in vain; the father and mother egret did not come back to the nest. "They don't come back ever, the big angel birds; but we go and look for them, Papita. You see, the little ones are so hungry; they die if we don't feed them." The children paddled up and down the swamp, searching everywhere, and finally found the old egrets--all that the plume hunters had left--just the two snowy bodies, from which the beautiful, long aigrette plumes had been roughly torn. "Oh, oh, what _can_ we do? The little ones wait; they so hungry," spoke Papita, her eyes full of tears. "Papita, I tell you what--we, you and I, we be father and mother now to these little angel birds. We bring the little fish, until they be large enough to get for themselves. But first, we hide them, these little ones." "Oh, yes, yes, so no hunters find them, Tony," replied Papita, seizing her paddle eagerly.