"Are you too young to explain about this trick that you just warned me against?" Snowball asked. "I'd like to know how there can be any danger in salt. How can anybody be caught with salt?"
"Well, you are a silly!" cried Mr. Crow. "Can't you guess that Johnnie Green is going to put salt on everybody's tail?"
VII
WARNING THE FLOCK
Snowball Lamb was puzzled. He didn't understand old Mr. Crow's answer at all.
"What if Johnnie Green should put salt on my tail?" he asked Mr. Crow. "What harm would that do?"
The old gentleman stared at Snowball as if he couldn't quite believe that anybody could be so stupid.
"Haven't you ever heard that that's the way to catch people?" cried Mr. Crow at last. "Why, there isn't a boy in Pleasant Valley who doesn't know that; and many of 'em carry salt about in their pockets all the time, hoping to get a chance some day to put the salt on my tail, and capture me!" Mr. Crow's bright eyes snapped. And his bill snapped, too. For the mere thought of such scheming always made him terribly angry.
And then Snowball said something that made Mr. Crow more impatient than ever.