He knew everything about the Creeping Hills, including the location of each farm, the character of the farmer and his family, the gardens planted and the crops that would grow, and the number and species of livestock.
A sagging barbed-wire fence two yards from the edge of Willow Brook marked the border of the Mundee farm. Its proprietor was Arthur Mundee, but because no man in the Creeping Hills was ever called by his given name, his neighbors knew him as Mun. He had a thirteen-year-old son named Harold and called Harky, and a wife who had gone to her eternal peace seven years ago. Next in importance was a hound, a bluetick named Precious Sue. Mun Mundee was a coon hunter so ardent that hunting coons was almost a passion, and Precious Sue one of the few hounds that had ever tracked Old Joe to the great sycamore. This had not impressed Old Joe unduly, or created any special fear of either Mun Mundee or Precious Sue.
After a moment's concentration, Old Joe ran his tongue over his lips. Mun Mundee owned some horses, some cattle, and some pigs. He also owned some chickens. Old Joe had not been hungry when he left the sycamore, but neither had he expected an opportunity to confound Mun Mundee. Old Joe licked his lips a second time. When he thought of the chickens, he was suddenly ravenous.
He left Willow Brook and crawled under the barbed-wire fence. He did not slink or hesitate, for he had chosen his night well; the waning moon left complete darkness behind it. The Mundees would be asleep in their house and Precious Sue on the porch. Nobody hunted coons in winter.
Walking boldly, but with not so much as a whisper of sound on the thawing snow, Old Joe saw as soon as the farm came in sight that his analysis was correct. The house was dark. The Mundees and Precious Sue were asleep. Cattle and horses shuffled in their stalls and pigs grunted sleepily in their sty.
Old Joe went straight to the chicken house, and licked his lips a third time as the odor of sleeping chickens delighted his nostrils.
He did not hesitate but went straight to the small door that let the chickens in and out. It was a sliding door that could be raised or lowered, and it was a combination with which Old Joe had long been familiar. He slipped a front paw beneath the door, raised it, entered the chicken house, and let the door slide shut behind him.
The inside of Mun Mundee's chicken house, like the other chicken houses in the Creeping Hills, was familiar. Old Joe climbed to the roost, and a fat white hen clucked sleepily as she sensed something alien beside her. Almost gently Old Joe opened his mouth, closed it on the fat hen's neck, and leaped lightly to the floor with his plunder. He let himself out the same way he got in.
He was halfway back to Willow Brook when, stopping to get a better grip on the fat hen, he was careless. The hen was good for one last squawk.