“Oh, yes, I am,� Watch was fair enough to explain. “I’m the last beast in all the woods he’d try it on. My ears are wide, and my nose is wet, and my long, stiff coat feels every stir in the grass. I wake up with a jump before I know whether I heard or smelled or felt what was coming. But Killer is quieter than a pad-footed pussy. He can hide his scent like a nesting quail, and he can see where he’s stepping. That’s why he never hunts fair. He’s all bite and no fight.�
“He certainly is!� agreed the bird.
“Ah, but here’s the point,â€� the old dog went on. “We know who we’re hunting, and he doesn’t know we know. We won’t let him. Then we’ve got trouble down a mouse hole. We’ll hunt him like the pussycat hunts them—pretend we aren’t paying any attention and be all ready to pounce on him. A still tongue and a waving tail is the way to trail trouble whenever you find it. Not a cheep until the time comes!â€�
And this time Bobby Robin didn’t answer—not with his tongue. He just wagged his long tail up and down so very hard that his whole perch wagged with him.
CHAPTER V
KILLER THE WEASEL MAKES A PLAN LIKEWISE
With a still tongue and a waving tail Watch galloped back from the Robins’ Roost, Bobby Robin flitting along beside him. They were hunting trouble, and that was the very wisest way in the world to hunt it. Because the very trouble they were hunting was peering through a crack between two big stones on the bank of Doctor Muskrat’s Pond. It was a little bit of a crack—so little you wouldn’t think a garter snake could much more than squeeze into it. But it held a lot of trouble. Because trouble is brains—not size.
Trouble was the meanest of all the things from under-the-earth who came up to spoil Mother Nature’s nice plans in the far-back, First-Off Beginning of Things. Trouble was Killer the Weasel, with his snaky head and his cruel beady eyes and his conceited smile. And he was peering through that crack to see how the Woodsfolk behaved before he tried a very funny trick the wife of the Bad Little Owls had whispered to him.
The first thing he saw was Watch the Dog bounding along with his tail in the air as though he hadn’t a care in the world. “Ho,� said the wicked weasel to himself, “that clumsy beast would carry his tail between his legs if he knew I was here!� I told you he was conceited.
The next thing he saw was Bobby Robin flitting past as careless as a butterfly in a breeze. “A-ha!� said the weasel to himself, “that foolish bird would set up a fine squawking if he knew I was here.� Wasn’t he just conceited?
Then he laid his ear to the crack to hear if they were talking about him. But they weren’t—not a single word. It really hurt his feelings. That’s how conceited he was!