“Isn’t that too bad,� she sympathized. Really she was glad; her feathers unruffled again, now that she felt sure he couldn’t sneak up on her while she wasn’t looking.
By this time he was picking the robin’s bones. Pretty soon he licked his whiskers with a raspy tongue; it made cold shivers run through those bad little birds. Even the lady owl was sorry she’d brought him to Tommy Peele’s Woods and Fields. That’s what she got for losing her temper. She wondered how long he’d been listening and what he’d heard.
The wicked weasel knew just what she was thinking about. He said in a voice as raspy as his tongue: “I heard you say something about a mouse’s stump. That sounds like a quick place to get a full meal before this storm that’s coming. I’ll ask you to take me there so I won’t have to waste any time hunting for it. But first I want to ask you some questions. Come down here so I don’t have to shout. Come along!�
His wife stared at the Bad Little Owl and the Bad Little Owl stared back at her. Their eyes grew wider and shinier, and their clothes felt pin-featherier than ever they had since the day those birds were hatched. My, but they were scared! Slowly they both turned to stare down at Killer the Weasel, who sat beneath their tree. And let me tell you he wasn’t the handsome, slicked-up beast with the pricky ears and the arched neck and the fluffed tail who had tried to make friends with the Woodsfolk—he looked too sharp-toothed and snaky for anything.
“Hustle!� called Killer in his raspy voice. “I’m not going to shout at you way up there for every one to hear, and I’m not going to hunt, until I know several things that you forgot to tell me when you invited me here. But we’ve no time to waste. If this turns out to be a three-days’ storm we’ll be hungry enough by the end of it, even if we get a good meal before it begins. Come along!� He fixed his eye on the lady owl, and she saw a red spark gleaming in it.
She didn’t mean to come—not she. But somehow she couldn’t seem to help herself. Before he knew quite what she was doing, down she came. She grabbed at the springy, pickery stem of a wild raspberry—no bird in its sane senses would ever think of perching on one—and there she hung. But she knew he could jump right up and catch her.
“Now!� he hissed in that dreadful whisper things from under-the-earth use, whether they wear fur or scales, “Where’s Silvertip the Fox, my deadly enemy?�
“Silvertip? Oh, he’s duck hunting in the Big Marsh, way off the other side of the Deep Woods,� lied the owl. She didn’t dare tell him Silvertip was dead.
“Ah,� growled the weasel. “Well, then, why didn’t you warn me about that man?� (He meant Louie Thomson.) “Did you think I wouldn’t know these woods are full of his jaws, just gaping for me to put my foot in one?� (He meant traps, of course.)
“Who-o-o!â€� exclaimed the owl. “That man hasn’t any more jaws or claws than a hoptoad. Men don’t get them till they’re grown, and he’s just a little harmless wild one. He never hunts; he lives on corn. Once in a while he comes over here for a root from Doctor Muskrat, who owns the pond—just like the other wild things do if they’re sick or hurt. Then he goes back again.â€�