en Johnnie Green comes to
salt us," she told him. "_We_ all expect to have a very pleasant time,"
she added.

"Have you ever had salt put on your tail?" Snowball asked the old lady.

"Certainly not!" she snapped. And she glared at Snowball so fiercely
that he fell back several steps. "Are you trying to insult me?" she
cried.

He did not answer. It was plain to him that Aunt Nancy didn't know
anything about the trick of putting salt on one's tail. Yes! Mr. Crow
must be wiser than she was.

"They'll all get into trouble," Snowball thought. And then he said
something that was almost exactly like what Mr. Crow had said to him.
"They can't say I didn't warn them!"

VIII

SALTING THE SHEEP

Snowball Lamb stood in the pasture apart from the rest of the flock.
Aunt Nancy Ewe had returned to her grazing. And not one of her
companions acted as if some dreadful peril hung over him. Nobody would
have thought, to look at the flock, that they were about to have salt
put on their tails. But Snowball knew that it was so. Far down the
valley he could hear old Mr. Crow's warning _caw_, _caw_, telling him
again to beware of Johnnie Green.

And just then Johnnie squirmed through the pasture bars and pulled a
sack after him. Presently he began to call to the sheep. And Snowball
watched while they went, one and all, on a dead run towards the bars.

Then Snowball turned and ran the other way, straight for the stone wall.
He didn't even look back once, but scrambled over the wall and lost
himself in the tangle of berry bushes that grew in a rocky old pasture
that hadn't been used for years.

"He's salting them by this time," Snowball muttered to himself. "Johnnie
Green is salting the sheep. And I'm glad Mr. Crow warned me, for I
shouldn't want salt put on my tail. It must be terrible to be caught
that way."

"What's that you're saying?" said a lively voice near-by.

Snowball leaped back; then stood still and stared at a pair of antlers
which stuck up from behind a berry bush.

The antlers rose a little higher. And then Snowball saw the face of
Nimble Deer beneath them.

"What were you murmuring about _salt_?" Nimble inquired pleasantly.

"Johnnie Green is salting the sheep over in our pasture," Snowball
explained.

"He is, eh?" cried Nimble Deer. "Then why aren't you there with the
rest?"

Snowball shook his head.

"It's too dangerous," he said. "I don't want salt put on my tail."

Nimble Deer gave him a quee