"I didn't suppose that chap would be here as soon as this," he gasped. "He must have hurried over here from the woods. He must be very hungry."
As Solomon Owl returned to the old oak his cousin Simon Screecher laughed somewhat unpleasantly.
"Missed him—didn't you?" he inquired.
"Yes!"
"Why didn't you grab him out of the snow?" Simon asked. "What are your claws for? What's your beak for?"
"I couldn't dig him out," Solomon Owl replied. "The snow is three feet deep. And it has seven different crusts, one under another."
"This is a hard winter," said Simon Screecher. "I wish I'd gone South last fall. I wonder how the mousing is down there."
