THE HUNTER LOSES HIS TEMPER
The hunter, hidden near the pond of Paddy the Beaver, chuckled silently.
That is to say, he laughed without making any sound. The hunter thought
the warning of Mr. and Mrs. Quack by Sammy Jay was a great joke on
Reddy. To tell the truth, he was very much pleased. As you know, he
wanted those Ducks himself. He suspected that they would stay in that
little pond for some days, and he planned to return there and shoot them
after he had got Lightfoot the Deer. He wanted to get Lightfoot first,
and he knew that to shoot at anything else might spoil his chance of
getting a shot at Lightfoot.
"Sammy Jay did me a good turn," thought the hunter, "although he doesn't
know it. Reddy Fox certainly would have caught one of those Ducks had
Sammy not come along just when he did. It would have been a shame to
have had one of them caught by that Fox. I mean to get one, and I hope
both of them, myself."
Now when you come to think of it, it would have been a far greater shame
for the hunter to have killed Mr. and Mrs. Quack than for Reddy Fox to
have done so. Reddy was hunting them because he was hungry. The hunter
would have shot them for sport. He didn't need them. He had plenty of
other food. Reddy Fox doesn't kill just for the pleasure of killing.
So the hunter continued to sit in his hiding-place with very friendly
feelings for Sammy Jay. Sammy watched Reddy Fox disappear and then flew
over to that side of the pond where the hunter was. Mr. and Mrs. Quack
called their thanks to Sammy, to which he replied, that he had done no
more for them than he would do for anybody, or than they would have done
for him.
For some time Sammy sat quietly in the top of the tree, but all the time
his sharp eyes were very busy. By and by he spied the hunter sitting on
the log. At first he couldn't make out just what it was he was looking
at. It didn't move, but nevertheless Sammy was suspicious. Presently he
flew over to a tree where he could see better. Right away he spied the
terrible gun, and he knew just what that was. Once more he began to
yell, "Thief! thief! thief!" at the top of his lungs. It was then that
the hunter lost his temper. He knew that now he had been discovered by
Sammy Jay, and it was useless to remain there longer. He was angry clear
through.