But when at length he found what he had been looking for—a hole with fresh brown dirt scattered carelessly around it—Benny Badger showed by every one of his actions that he didn't intend to move on until he had burrowed to the very end of it.
A broad smile lighted up his queerly marked face. At least, he opened his mouth and showed a good many of his teeth. And a bright, eager glint came into his eyes; whereas they had had a somewhat wistful look before, as if their owner might have been hungry, and didn't exactly know where he was going to find a meal.
Then Benny Badger looked all around, to see whether anybody might be watching him. But there was no one in sight. And if there had been, Benny Badger would have done no more than tell him that he had better run along about his business, because it would do him no good to wait—none at all.
And if the onlooker had happened to come so near as to bother Benny in what he intended to do, that unfortunate person might have wished that he had taken a bit of friendly advice in time, and made himself scarce.
But, of course, Benny Badger was not so foolish as to give any such warning, for there was no one there to hear it.
III
NO ONE AT HOME
Since there seemed to be nobody lurking in the shadows around him, and watching him, Benny Badger turned to the ground squirrel's hole and began to dig. How he did make the dirt fly! He scooped it up with his big feet and flung it back in a shower, not caring in the least where it fell. For he was interested not in what lay behind, but before him.
In almost less time than it takes to tell about it, Benny Badger had made the entrance of the tunnel so big that it swallowed his head and shoulders.