“No, thank you,” grinned Tad Coon. “Not the way he makes friends. I don’t want to be trapped like you and Doctor Muskrat, and I don’t want to be hunted like Silvertip the Fox. I’m going.”
“But you haven’t been stealing his chickens like Silvertip did,” argued Nibble.
“How do you know?” asked Tad. For it was his guilty conscience that made him afraid. He didn’t exactly steal Tommy Peele’s chickens, but he had eaten some eggs that were very nearly hatched. And all this time Nibble could see him working away at something with his little handy-paws. Pretty soon he called again: “Mister Hound, I asks you for the last time, are you going to let me down?”
“Yah!” barked Trailer. “I ’most certainly am not.”
“Hm,” sniffed Tad Coon. “We’ll see about that, then.” Blam! He hit Trailer square on the head with something. And this time the hound jumped because he really was stung. “Ow, ow, ow!” he yelped, and he started for home on the run with a trail of buzzing insects strung out behind him.
Tad Coon hits Trailer on the head with a hornet’s nest.
“Run, run, run!” squalled Tad. “Look at that hound run! He’s only hitting the high spots. Ye-a-o-u-w! See him go!” And he danced about on the limb until the limb danced with him.
Trailer was surely running—faster than ever he’d run on any trail. But this time he wasn’t chasing any one—the buzzers were chasing him. For it wasn’t a piece of bark Tad threw down the last time—it was the fat round nest of some paper wasps.
Nibble Rabbit wasn’t seeing any of the fun. He knew something about paper wasps. They were buzzing all over everywhere, and they don’t care who they sting when they get angry. He sat very still in the Pickery Things with his twitchy nose tucked down between his furry feet, and his waggly ears laid flat back, and his bright eyes squinched up as tight as ever he could shut them. Some of those wasps flew right by him and never knew he was anything but a round stone—not even the one that tangled its legs in his whiskers. He did feel awfully sorry for poor Trailer; but all the same Tad Coon had been pretty smart to send him home.