For three nights Old Man Coyote had stolen up through the green
Forest with the coming of the Black Shadows and had hidden among
the aspen trees where Paddy the Beaver cut his food, and for
three nights Paddy had failed to come ashore. Each night he had
seemed to have enough food logs in the water to keep him busy
without cutting more. Old Man Coyote lay there, and the hungry
look in his eyes changed to one of doubt and then to suspicion.
Could it be that Paddy the Beaver was smarter than he thought? It
began to look very much as if Paddy knew perfectly well that he
was hiding there each night. Yes, Sir, that's the way it looked.
For three nights Paddy hadn't cut a single tree, and yet each
night he had plenty of food logs ready to take to his storehouse
in the pond.
"That means that he comes ashore in the daytime and cuts his
trees," thought Old Man Coyote as, tired and with black anger in
his heart, he trotted home the third night. "He couldn't have
found out about me himself; he isn't smart enough. It must be
that someone has told him. And nobody knows that I have been over
there but Sammy Jay. It must be he who has been the tattletale. I
think I'll visit Paddy by daylight tomorrow, and then we'll see!"
Now the trouble with some smart people is that they are never
able to believe that others may be as smart as they. Old Man
Coyote didn't know that the first time he had visited Paddy's
pond he had left behind him a footprint in a little patch of soft
mud. If he had known it, he wouldn't have believed that Paddy
would be smart enough to guess what that footprint meant. So Old
Man coyote laid all the blame at the door of Sammy Jay, and that
very morning, when Sammy came flying over the Green Meadows, Old
Man Coyote accused him of being a tattletale and threatened the
most dreadful things to Sammy if ever he caught him.
Now Sammy had flown down to the green Meadows to tell Old Man
Coyote how Paddy was doing all his work on land in the daytime.
But when Old Man Coyote began to call him a tattletale and
accuse him of having warned Paddy, and to threaten dreadful
things, he straightway forgot all his anger at Paddy and turned
it all on Old Man Coyote. He called him everything he could think
of, and this was a great deal, for Sammy has a wicked tongue.
When he hadn't any breath left, he flew over to the Green Forest,
and there he hid where he could watch all that was going on.
That afternoon Old Man Coyote tried his new plan. He slipped into
the Green Forest, looking this way and that way to be sure that
no one saw him. Then very, very softly, he crept up through the
Green Forest toward the pond of Paddy the Beaver. As he drew
near, he heard a crash, and it make him smile. He knew what it
meant. It meant that Paddy was at work cutting down trees. With
his stomach almost on the ground, he crept forward little by
little, little by little, taking the greatest care not to rustle
so much as a leaf. Presently he reached a place where he could
see the aspen trees, and there, sure enough, was Paddy, sitting
up on his hind legs and hard at work cutting another tree.
Old Man Coyote lay down for a few minutes to watch. Then he
wriggled a little nearer. Slowly and carefully he drew his legs
under him and made ready for a rush. Paddy the Beaver was his at
last! At just that very minute a harsh scream rang out right over
his head:
"Thief! thief! thief!"
It was Sammy Jay, who had followed him all the way. Paddy the
Beaver didn't stop to even look around. He knew what that meant,
and he scrambled down his little path to the water as he never
had scrambled before. And as he dived with a great splash, Old Man
Coyote landed with a great jump on the very edge of the pond.