The path the army now followed was so rough that little headway could be made and the General had to order a halt every now and then to rest the mice and men. During one of these stops the General fell into conversation with a pert-looking little ground robin who had hopped onto the limb of a bush near by.

“Do you know just where these wild men live?” asked the General.

“I’ll say I does,” answered the robin, who used very bad grammar. “I knows more about ’em than I wants to. The nasty little scalawags! These wild men get most all the seeds hereabouts and it’s all an honest bird can do to scratch out a bare living.”

“Could you guide us for a few days?” put in the General.

“Gracious!” tittered the bird, “you’d never reach the wild men’s place in a few days with all those wagons and mice. They live on an island. You’ll have to have a boat or somethin’ to carry you over the water.”

“I have heard that they live on an island,” said the General, “but I mean could you show us the way to the water where we would be nearest to the island?”

“Of course I could,” answered the bird; “that is, providin’ it would be worth my time.”

“We will pay you,” said the General. “We’ll give you six sunflower seeds for your work.”

“Make it six and a half seeds and I’ll do it,” cried the bird.

The General agreed and the bird hopped along ahead of the army, jumping onto a bush occasionally to point out the best path. After a couple of hours’ march, the army came out onto a sandy beach, where the General called a halt.

“This is the place and over there is the island,” cried the bird, nodding his head towards the water.

The Teenie Weenies looked across the water and they could see the dim outlines of the island.

The ground robin was paid his six and a half sunflower seeds and in a short time the tired little soldiers put up the tiny tents and made a most cozy little camp. They named it camp Bitem, because of the many mosquitoes about the place.

As the General did not wish a fire to be built for fear the wild men might see the light, the little army made its dinner on two sliced strawberries and a few grains of rice. No lights were lit that night in the camp and a strong guard watched carefully throughout the 

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