m."

Mrs. Quack shivered at that, and Blacky saw it. He chuckled softly. You
know he dearly loves to make others uncomfortable. "I saw three hunters
over on the edge of the Big River early this very morning," said he.

Mrs. Quack looked more anxious than ever. Blacky's sharp eyes noted
this.

"That is why I came over here," he added kindly. "I wanted to give you
warning."

"But you didn't know the Quacks were here!" spoke up Peter.

"True enough, Peter. True enough," replied Blacky, his eyes twinkling.
"But I thought they might be. I had heard a rumor that those who go
south are traveling earlier than usual this fall, so I knew I might find
Mr. and Mrs. Quack over here any time now. Is it true, Mrs. Quack, that
we are going to have a long, hard, cold winter?"

"That is what they say up in the Far North," replied Mrs. Quack. "And it
is true that Jack Frost had started down earlier than usual. That is
how it happens we are here now. But about those hunters over by the Big
River, do you suppose they will come over here?" There was an anxious
note in Mrs. Quack's voice.

"No," replied Blacky promptly. "Farmer Brown's boy won't let them. I
know. I've been watching him and he has been watching those hunters. As
long as you stay here, you will be safe. What a great world this would
be if all those two-legged creatures were like Farmer Brown's boy."

"Wouldn't it!" cried Peter. Then he added, "I wish they were."

"You don't wish it half as much as I do," declared Mrs. Quack.

"Yet I can remember when he used to hunt with a terrible gun and was as
bad as the worst of them," said Blacky.

"What changed him?" asked Mrs. Quack, looking interested.

"Just getting really acquainted with some of the little people of the
Green Forest and the Green Meadows," replied Blacky. "He found them
ready to meet him more than halfway in friendship and that some of them
really are his best friends."

"And now he is their best friend," spoke up Peter.

Blacky nodded. "Right, Peter," said he. "That is why the Quacks are safe
here and will be as long as they stay."

CHAPTER XV: Blacky Does A Little Looking About

Do not take the word of others
That things are or are not so
When there is a chance that you may
Find out for yourself and know.
--Blacky the Crow.

Blacky the Crow is a shrewd fellow. He is one of the smartest and
shrewdest of all the little people in the Green Forest and on the Green
Meadows. Ever