WHERE WAS REDDY'S DINNER?
Often it is better to look for a new trail than to waste time
hunting for an old one.
_Bowser the Hound._
Reddy Fox is used to all sorts of queer happenings. Yes, Sir, he is used
to all sorts of queer happenings, and as a rule Reddy is seldom puzzled
for long. You see he is such a clever fellow himself that any one clever
enough to fool him for long must be very clever indeed. This time,
however, all the cleverness of his sharp wits did him no good. The fat
hen he had hidden in a hollow stump had disappeared without leaving
trace.
Reddy's first thought was that probably the farmer from whom he had
stolen the fat hen had found it and taken it away. At once he began to
use that wonderful nose of his searching for the scent of that farmer.
Very carefully he sniffed all about the top of that old stump and inside
the hollow. There wasn't the faintest scent of anybody there. Then he
jumped down, and with his nose to the ground, ran all around the stump,
sniffing, sniffing, sniffing. The only thing he discovered was the scent
of Bowser the Hound, and he knew that Bowser had not taken that fat hen,
because, as you remember, Bowser had kept right on chasing him.
Reddy began to feel afraid of that old stump. People usually are afraid
of mysterious things, and it certainly was very mysterious that a fat
hen with a broken neck should disappear without leaving any trace at
all. Reddy sat down at a little distance and did a lot of hard thinking.
He looked every which way even up in the tree tops, but all his looking
was in vain. It was so mysterious that if he hadn't known positively
that he was awake he would have thought it was all a dream.
But Reddy is something of a philosopher. That fat hen was gone, and
there was no use in wasting time puzzling over it. There were other fat
hens where that one came from, and he would just have to catch another.
So Reddy trotted through the swamp till he came to the edge of it. There
his keen nose found the scent of the farmer. It didn't take him two
minutes to discover that the farmer had followed Bowser the Hound to the
edge of the swamp and then gone back. Eagerly Reddy looked over to the
farmyard for those fat hens. They, too, had disappeared. Not one was to
be seen. But there was no mystery about the disappearance of these other
fat hens. He heard the muffled crow of the big rooster. It came from the
henhouse. All those fat hens had been shut up. It was perfectly plain
to Reddy that the farmer suspected Reddy might return, and he didn't
intend to lose another fat hen. With a little yelp of disappointment,
Reddy turned his back on the farm and trotted off into the woods.