the woods weren’t peaceful at all next morning. watch came tearing down to doctor muskrat’s pond with the bristles pricked up on his shoulders and his teeth snapping. “where’s that coon?” he snarled. “give me that coon. he’s broken his compact already. now i will have to kill him, and you might just as well have let me do it yesterday.”
doctor muskrat popped his head out of the pond. “what’s the matter?” he asked. “and where’s tommy peele?”
“he’s coming,” snapped watch. “and he knows who did it, too.”
“then he knows more than you do,” called nibble rabbit, hurrying through the pickery things. “tad coon hasn’t been out of the woods a single minute.”
“he has!” snarled watch. “he’s slit the throats of every chick belonging to old topknot—the hen who was good to you, nibble rabbit. perhaps that’s one of his jokes.”
“oh-h-h!” gasped nibble. “but what makes you sure it was tad?”
“topknot says it was someone who wore stripes. who else could it be?”
“the cat!” guessed nibble. “she wears them.”
“no, it wasn’t! i smelled, and it didn’t smell like her.”
“then smell of me,” said tad. and he marched right out of the pickery things, not a bit afraid because he did-n’t have a guilty conscience. “it won’t smell like me, either.”
so when tommy peele came running up, there stood tad coon with his fur all fluffed up to let the scent out (you remember how the quails sleeked their feathers to hold it), but he wasn’t snarling. he wasn’t even angry. and watch was sniffing carefully all around him.
“sic him! s-s-s-sic him!” called tommy peele. my, but he was the angry one.
“no,” barked watch. “beg pardon, tad. it wasn’t your smell, either.”
“whoever it was,” said nibble, “i’m coming up to the barn to help find him.”
maybe you think tommy peele wasn’t puzzled! “s-s-s-sic him!” he ordered impatiently. “whatever is the matter with you, anyway? you aren’t scared of him, are you? yesterday you wanted to kill him for nothing at all, and to-day you won’t touch him. but if he didn’t kill all poor topknot’s little chicks, who did? it’s a regular coon trick—dad says so. s-s-sic him! go on!”
“a-aour-r!” watch whined unhappily. “if i only could tell you that it wasn’t tad coon!”
“we’ve just got to find out for ourselves and show him,” said nibble rabbit. “the sooner we start the fresher the scent,” he quoted from an old dog-song. “come along.”
“i’m coming, too,” announced tad coon. “this is some of my business.”
“no, you’re not,” said nibble. “we don’t want another paw-mark until we examine every trail up by the barn.”
“that’s right,” said watch. “that kind of a thief doesn’t fly. i didn’t stop to look because i was so sure i knew who did it.”
“but you couldn’t make any mistake about mine,” protested tad, holding up his handy-paw. “no one, not even my cousin gurf bear, who has hind feet like mine, has one anything like it.”
now tommy was angry enough about those chicks of topknot the hen’s, but he was angrier yet because watch wouldn’t obey him. “you’re a bad, bad dog!” he scolded. “i’m going right over to get trailer. he isn’t afraid.” and you know trailer the hound, who belonged to tommy’s big cousin sandy, was tad coon’s worst enemy.
“there!” watch exclaimed. “you see you’d better keep away. trailer won’t make any compact with you, and he wouldn’t even listen if i tried to explain how your tracks came to be there, but if you don’t leave any he’ll tell tommy so the same way i’ve been trying to.” and watch galloped off to catch up with the cross little boy.
but tommy wouldn’t forgive him no matter how much watch begged and explained. only when he passed the place where the dead chicks had lain he cried, “why, they aren’t all here! that killer must have come back after them.” he saw watch sniff them just as carefully as he had sniffed tad coon down by the pond. and he knew just where tad coon had been every minute of the time. tad didn’t take them. so now he understood. “all right, watch. good dog,” he said. “it wasn’t the coon. then who was it? s-s-sic him!”
and maybe you think that didn’t make watch happy!
if nibble hadn’t been in such a hurry to get up to the barn and see topknot’s little dead chicks he might have found who really killed them all the sooner. but here was a new killer whom no one had ever seen, so no one knew how to hide from him or where to expect him. no wonder nibble was too excited to think of listening at the brushpile for the bad little owls.
just about the time he went slipping down the fence row under the safe pickers of the blackberry canes they were having their first full meal since chaik and his family mauled them for trying to help silvertip. chaik had pulled out so many feathers that they couldn’t hunt well. and now they had swallowed one of those fuzzy little chickens, fluff, legs, and all, because they were so hungry.
“my, but that chick tasted good,” said the lady owl. “do you know, when stripes came waddling by this morning and bragged about what he’d done, i didn’t believe him. i don’t see why he didn’t eat every last one of them instead of leaving them for us.”
“he didn’t leave them for us at all,” snapped the he owl. “and don’t you ever tell him we took one, either. he just killed them and laid them out in a neat row so it would look like one of tad coon’s tricks. then that boy would think it was the coon and make all sorts of trouble for him.”
“why doesn’t stripes like tad coon?” said his mate thoughtfully.
“he’s jealous because tad has a compact with that shaggy dog so it won’t chase him, and he’s mad because it’s getting to such a pass in the woods and fields that you hardly dare rob a nest for fear that rabbit will tell on you.”
“what happens then?” asked his wife, sleepily, for it was long after sunup.
“that’s the mystery,” he answered in an awed voice. “but silvertip has disappeared, and grandpop snapping turtle, and you know yourself that foulfang the rattlesnake was nothing more than ant food when we found him.”
“then you aren’t going to help stripes? he might feed us.”
“i’m not going to help any one but myself. and right now i’ll help myself to one more chicken. i could sleep right through a full moon if i had a full stomach. stripes is asleep in the oak that blew down in the terrible storm. keep your eye on him. we can take what he leaves without helping him fight that rabbit.” and off he flew, steering very badly with his ragged tail.
but nibble rabbit wouldn’t have known who stripes was, even if he had overheard the little owls.
