So when the wicked weasel woke up and squeezed himself through the narrow crack between his two stones, he didn’t see any one at all. “That’s queer,â€� he thought. “It’s certainly supper time for those juicy little rabbits.â€� He listened. He didn’t hear any one at all, so he began exploring, with his nose to the ground. And he could smell where all the Woodsfolk had been scuttling around—tracks and tracks of them. That satisfied him. “They’ll be coming down for a drink before long,â€� he told himself. “I’ll just step under this bush, where they won’t see me too soon, and wait for them.â€�
CHAPTER IX
TROUBLE COMES HOME TO THE BAD LITTLE OWLS
Well, Killer waited, and waited, and waited. But nobody came at all. Nobody unless you count the bats. Killer didn’t because only a bird can catch them when they’re awake, and it’s a mighty lucky bird if it does.
He got hungrier, and hungrier, and hungrier. Still nobody came. And the hungrier he got the madder he was because the Little Screecher Owls had brought him there. He thought they were playing a trick on him. So he began to slip from one tree to another, hunting for the one they perch in.
The ground under an owl’s perch always has little gray wads of fur and feathers and bones beneath it—the leftovers of the last food the owls have been eating.
If there are very many weasels and cats to bother them, the owls neatly carry these to some other tree than the one they sleep in. But these Bad Little Owls were too lazy to attend to their housekeeping. Killer put his nose into a whole pile of this rubbish the very first thing.
“Robin!â€� he sniffed. “Let me think. That owl said she didn’t hunt robins. Then she stole them; she stole them from under the Robins’ Roost. I’ll teach that owl to let my birds alone, just exactly wherever I choose to leave them. She stole those robins! I’ll——â€� But he pricked up his ears because he heard the little owls begin to talk on their perch just over his head.
“I wonder if Killer and the Woodsfolk have made friends by now,� said one. “I’ve been listening ever since I woke up, and I haven’t heard a thing.�
“Few beasts can move so quietly that an owl doesn’t hear them even if he’s listening,� thought Killer proudly.
“Of course they’ve made friends,� said the lady owl. “If they made friends with Stripes Skunk, of course they would with him. He’s ever so much smarter, and I think he’s much handsomer.� She did, too. Owls think it’s fine to be fierce looking.