"Then I told the president all that had happened from the time Grandfather Fox met me and he said, when I had finished the story:
"'I've always claimed, Bunny, that you're not as big a fool as you look, and you can prove it by going straight home instead of hanging around here, where you're in danger, simply for the satisfaction of seeing Mr. Fox's skin nailed up on the barn. Besides, it'll take Mr. Man a good hour to do the job as it should be done.'
"'Why don't you take your own advice, Mr. Crow?' I asked, and he replied with a flirt of his tail:
"'That's just what I'm about to do, Mr. Bunny. I only stopped here to see what Mr. Man was going to do with poor Bobby Coon, but there's no more sense in my doing that than there is for you to wait for the funeral of Grandfather Fox. I'm right glad he's dead, even though he never killed any of my relatives; but if I had a young family where a fox could get at them I shouldn't feel easy in mind a single minute when he was around, although I've heard said that the crows are not what you might call real good eating.'
"Then Mr. Crow stepped out into the open, where he could have a fair chance to raise his wings and off he sailed without a single 'caw,' which shows how nervous he really was.
"Well, I began to turn about, smelling the safest way home, for what Mr. Crow had said gave me the idea that perhaps I was foolish to spend my time so near the farm, especially when I could come before anybody was stirring next morning to see Grandfather Fox's skin, and just at the very minute I had hunched myself to jump who should come ambling along but Bobby Coon.
"You can't think what a start it gave me to see him after the president of our club had said he was dead! If he hadn't called in a way that would have been very unnatural for a dead coon it isn't certain I'd stayed to meet him. I was afraid it was nothing but his ghost I saw.
"'What is scaring you, Bunny? Don't you know me?'
"'Mr. Crow just told me you were dead; that he had seen Mr. Man carrying you home by the tail,' I said as soon as I could gather my wits and much to my surprise Bobby said, as if it was something that happened to him regularly:
"'That's just what Mr. Man was doing, Bunny, and I reckon he thought I was dead, all right. I'll tell you how it happened: I was asleep on a big branch that happened to grow near the ground, never dreaming there could be any danger, because I was in the very middle of the big woods, when Mr. Man came along and at the very moment I awakened he hit me a clip with the end of his gun. I had sense enough to understand that there wasn't any chance to get away then, and instead of trying to run I fell plump on the ground, lying there as if the breath had been entirely knocked out of my body, which came near being the truth on account of the fall—the clip he gave me wouldn't have killed a flea. Well, for all Mr. Man is so big he's considerable of a fool and without stopping to see if I were really dead he picked me up by the tail, walking off as if he had done something very brave.'