But Mr. Crow replied hoarsely that he had to meet a friend down the valley. "I must be flapping along," he said. And off he went.
Jasper Jay grinned and winked at Nimble and Dodger behind Mr. Crow's back. And then with a loud squall—which might have meant almost anything—he too flew away.
"That was the liveliest mock battle we ever had," Nimble remarked to his friend Dodger.
Dodger agreed with what he said.
Nimble's mother gasped when she saw her son a little later.
"You're a terrible sight!" she told him severely. "What have you been doing?"
"I've been having fun with Dodger the Deer," Nimble explained. "But to tell the truth, it wasn't as much fun as I had expected."