.

"What's the matter?" boomed Solomon Owl. "Do you want to lose the
contest?"

"No!" said Mr. Meadow Mouse. "But Grumpy Weasel is still inside that
hole. There's no other way out."

"How do you know?" Solomon Owl asked him.

"Oh, I've been here before, often," Mr. Meadow Mouse replied.

"Are you sure?" Mr. Owl inquired.

"I'll go on the other side of the wall and look," Mr. Meadow Mouse
offered. And thereupon he skipped over the wall.

Solomon Owl waited patiently. And so did Grumpy Weasel. But Mr. Meadow
Mouse never came back. Once out of sight he scampered away. And he never
trespassed on Grumpy Weasel's hunting ground again.

VII

PADDY MUSKRAT'S BLUNDER

Sometimes Grumpy Weasel found the hunting poor along the stretch of
stone wall that he called his own--though of course it really belonged
to Farmer Green. And though he disliked to wander much in strange
neighborhoods, once in a while he visited other parts of Pleasant
Valley.

It was on such an excursion to the bank of the mill pond that he caught
sight, one day, of Paddy Muskrat--or to be more exact, that Paddy
Muskrat caught sight of him.

Now it was seldom that anybody spoke to Grumpy Weasel. On the contrary,
most of the forest-folk dodged out of sight whenever they saw him, and
said nothing. So he wheeled like a flash and started to run when
somebody called, "Hullo, stranger!"

One quick backward glance at a small wet head in the water told Grumpy
that he had nothing to fear.

"Hullo, yourself!" he retorted "And you'd better not call me 'stranger,'
because I'm no stranger than you are."

Well, Paddy Muskrat--for it was he who had spied Grumpy Weasel on the
bank of the pond--saw at once that whoever the slender and elegant
person might be, he had the worst of manners. Though Paddy had lived in
the mill pond a long time, he had never met any one that looked exactly
like the newcomer. To be sure, there was Peter Mink, who was
long-bodied and short-tempered, as the stranger appeared to be. But
when Paddy inquired whether the visitor wasn't a distant connection of
the Mink family (as indeed he was!), Grumpy Weasel said, "What! Do you
mean to insult me by asking whether I'm related to such a ragged,
ruffianly crowd?"

Somehow Paddy Muskrat rather liked that answer, for Peter Mink and all
his family were fine swimmers and most unwelcome in the mill pond.

And perhaps--who knew?--perhaps the spic-and-span chap on the bank, with
the sle