"'Why don't you catch a big, fat frog?' Cheeko asked as if he couldn't rest easy until he knew that Mr. Turtle was comfortable.
"'I haven't seen any around here lately, and there isn't time to go hunting to-day.'
"'I don't suppose you'd be willing to follow any plan of mine,' Mr. Squirrel said, speaking soft as silk; 'but if you did, I'm almost certain I could put you in a place where all you'd have to do would be to open your mouth when you wanted a bite.'
"That pleased Mr. Turtle 'way down to the ground, and he agreed he'd do whatever Mr. Squirrel said, providing he didn't have to walk too far, so Cheeko set about the plan he'd figured out in his mind for getting square with Mr. Crow. In the first place he daubed Mr. Turtle all over with clay till he looked like a ball of mud, and while doing this he told the old fellow how to act.
"'I'm going to carry you over into the woods a little way and you are to keep as still as a mouse till you feel some one meddling with the mud I'm sticking to your shell. Then you'll know it's time to get your dinner, and all you'll have to do will be to shut your jaws on whatever is within reach. I'll promise that you shall have meat that will be sweeter than the fattest frog you ever heard croak.'
"Mr. Turtle let Cheeko do what he pleased, and if you'll believe it, that squirrel rolled the old fellow in his covering of clay all the way from the pond up to Crow's Corner. It must have been a terrible job, but Cheeko was willing to do it for the sake of getting a joke on Mr. Crow, and when he came to the foot of the tree he sat down in front of what appeared to be nothing more than a clay ball, with his tail spread out over his head as if he were thinking mighty serious. It wasn't long before old Mr. Crow espied him and it really did seem as if that bird would shake himself into little pieces, he was so curious to know what Cheeko was doing. He sat on the very tip of one of the branches, looking at the odd thing until he could keep still no longer, and then he hopped down by the side of Cheeko.
"'What have you got with you, Mr. Squirrel?' he asked, trying to turn the clay ball over, and Cheeko said careless-like, as if it didn't make very much difference to him whether Mr. Crow got the information he wanted:
"'Roll it over two or three times and you may know as much as I do about it.'
"Mr. Crow twisted his head first on one side and then on the other until he had looked at the clay ball with both eyes, but Mr. Squirrel didn't offer to explain anything more, and finally he grew so excited that it seemed as if he just really had to do as Cheeko wanted. He rolled the funny looking thing to and fro without learning anything regarding it, and then began pecking at the hole in one end which Mr. Squirrel had left open so Mr. Turtle could get air.
"By this time poor old Mr. Turtle made up his slow mind that the meat Cheeko told him about was near at hand, and before Mr. Crow could wink an eye, out came a queer-looking head with jaws that fastened on the bird's leg in a way that wasn't pleasant or comfortable.