lf--or so it seemed to Mrs.
Hen.

"I'll show it to you gladly!" she cried. "Do come right in and look at
our rat hole, Mr. Weasel!"

As she spoke, Mrs. Hen started for the henhouse. And after her crept
Grumpy Weasel, hoping that nobody else would see him. So far as he could
tell, the hens were all out of doors, scratching in the dirt. But
suddenly Mrs. Hen's jealous neighbor began to set up a great squawking,
calling upon Mrs. Hen to be careful, for she was in great danger.

Fat Mrs. Hen turned about with a vexed look upon her handsome but
somewhat stupid face.

"Walk right in!" she said to Grumpy. "I must stop and settle with her.
She has gone too far." And leaving Grumpy to find the rat hole without
her help, Mrs. Hen fluttered across the henyard with her head thrust
forward, to give her meddlesome neighbor a number of hard pecks and so
teach her to mind her own affairs.

With a low chuckle Grumpy Weasel slipped inside the henhouse, where he
found himself quite alone. It took him but a few moments to discover in
one corner of the building the old rat hole of which Mrs. Hen had
spoken.

And then he went to the door and looked out, for Mrs. Hen and her
neighbor were making a terrific racket. He saw the end of the squabble.
And soon Mrs. Hen came running back, with her feathers sadly rumpled,
and her comb awry.

"I settled with her," she gasped. "And now tell me about the rat hole.
Could Peter Mink get through it?"

"No, he couldn't!" Grumpy Weasel said. Then he dodged strangely back
into the henhouse. And though Mrs. Hen hopped in after him she couldn't
find him anywhere.

She couldn't understand it.

XV

THE GREAT MYSTERY

The story soon spread all around the farmyard, how fat Mrs. Hen had been
seen talking with no less a rascal than Grumpy Weasel.

Everybody told her that it was a dangerous thing to do and that it was a
wonder she had escaped, until Mrs. Hen began to feel that she was quite
the most important person in the neighborhood. Even old dog Spot asked
her some questions one day--some of which she could answer, and some of
which she could not.

For one thing, she couldn't (or wouldn't) tell what way Grumpy left the
farmyard. "He just jumped back and was gone before I knew it," she said.

"That's what they all say," said Spot. "He's so quick you never can see
him go."

Now, Mrs. Hen ought to have explained that Grumpy Weasel disappeared
from inside the henhouse. But she was not a