“You’re altogether too slow and clumsy,” Simon Screecher told him bluntly. “If I’m going to hunt with anybody after this I’m going to choose someone that’s as spry as I am. There’s no sense in my working for you. Here I’ve toiled all night long and I’m still hungry, for I’ve given you a third of my food.”

They parted then—and none too pleasantly.

In Simon’s whistle, as he flew away toward his home, there was unmistakable anger. But Solomon Owl’s answering hoots—while they were not exactly sweet—seemed to carry more than a hint of laughter.

One would naturally think that Solomon might have been even hungrier than his small cousin. But it was not so. He had had more to eat than usual; for he had been very busy catching locusts and katydids—and frogs, too. Solomon Owl had not tried to catch a single mouse that night.

You know now the idea that had come to him while he was lying awake in his house during the daytime. He had made up his mind that he would not hunt for mice. And since he had not promised Simon to give him anything else, there was no reason why he should not eat all the frogs and katydids and locusts that he could find.

Perhaps it was not surprising that Simon Screecher never guessed the truth. But he seemed to know that there was something queer about that night’s hunting, for he never came to Solomon Owl’s house again.

XIX
The Sleet Storm

It was winter. And for several days a strong south wind had swept up Pleasant Valley. That—as Solomon Owl knew very well—that meant a thaw was coming. He was not sorry, because the weather had been bitterly cold.

Well, the thaw came. And the weather grew so warm that Solomon Owl could stay out all night without once feeling chilled. He found the change so agreeable that he strayed further from home than was his custom. Indeed, he was far away on the other side of Blue Mountain at midnight, when it began to rain.

Now, that was not quite so pleasant. But still Solomon did not mind greatly. It was not until later that he began to feel alarmed, when he noticed that flying did not seem so easy as usual.