They discovered that Benny Badger had been digging holes for the posts of the new fence that the rancher was going to build!
"When he finds those holes already made, he won't be so foolish as to dig others," Benny explained.
"But you've gone and dug them on the wrong side of the Prairie Dog village!" somebody objected.
"Of course I have!" Benny retorted. "I did that on purpose. Don't you understand that when the rancher finds the holes he'll use them where they are? You don't suppose—do you?—that he'll be so silly as to move the holes?"
The objector—a somewhat youthful coyote—slunk away with a foolish simper. He saw that Benny Badger knew what he was talking about.
"Since the Prairie Dogs' village will lie outside the new fence, the rancher won't pay any more attention to it," Benny Badger said stoutly. "From this time on, the Prairie Dogs are quite safe—so far as the rancher is concerned.... And that's how I have saved the day."
Benny Badger's secret was out at last. And as fast as people learned it they stopped to tell him that they had known all the time that he had a fine plan of some sort, and that if there was anything they could do to help him they would be greatly obliged if he would "count on them."
Of course the work was all done. But perhaps Benny's neighbors hadn't stopped to think of that. Anyhow he had never known them to be so pleasant before. And he quite enjoyed their praise; for everyone told him that nobody had ever suspected that he was so clever.
It was lucky that Benny took the time when he did to listen to his neighbors' pleasant speeches. Unfortunately they soon came to a sudden end.