Scrabble! Scratch! Squeak! went Brokentooth, Scarfoot, and Eggeater, each in turn. Each time the kitten stationed outside his hole pricked up its ears, and its wavy tail would tremble to the tip, and its claws would catch for a leap. Dig and gnaw, gnaw and dig, went the selfish Snatch, the cleverest rat of them all, making himself a new hole to sneak out through. They were helping him, but he wasn’t going to help them—not he.
Papa Stripes laid his head on one side and considered the case. Then a sly smile raised his whiskers. Pit-pat, pit-pat, he marched round the stack, whispering to each of his kittens in turn. “You see the slit in the old elm tree?” he asked one. The kitten nodded. “Did you notice the rat path under the chicken coop?” he asked the next. “Looks to me like a rat hole under that corn crib, eh?” he asked the third. He didn’t give any orders like “You do this,” or “You do that,” because he wanted the kittens to think for themselves. But he did show them what to think about.
Nip, slip, came Snatch, creeping out of the new hole he’d just made for himself. Pounce! Stripes closed it up behind him. “Now, rat,” he chuckled, “let’s see you run! And let’s see who catches you!”
“Wee-e-e-ak!” Snatch made for the slit in the elm. A kitten was there before him. The chicken-coop, then? No! The corn crib! Was Tommy’s barnyard all full of hunting skunks? A hole! A hole! He’d find one in the barn—under the grain bin! He raced for the door, the kittens after him, gaining at every bound, with their father ’most scared to death he wouldn’t be on time to lend a tooth if they needed it.
That’s how Snatch came to dive right between Tommy’s tall rubber boots as he stepped out the barn door with a milkpail in his hand. That’s how the skunk kittens came to flash past before the milk he slopped over could fall on them. “My land!” he exclaimed. “What are you doing here?” As though he couldn’t see for himself.
They were all three scrimmaging with Snatch the Rat at the very mouth of the rat hole. They never knew which of them killed him.
“Ee-e-e-yow!” squealed Stripes, prancing in his pride. “Isn’t that some hunting!” Then back they all romped to catch those poor hungry fellows in the haystack who thought Snatch was taking a mighty long time to make their new hole for them.
CHAPTER VI
A HUNGRY VILLAIN FILLS HIMSELF—BUT ONLY WITH FRIGHT
The most puzzled little boy you ever saw tramping off to school on a rainy morning was certainly Tommy Peele. Unless it was Louie Thomson. “Hey, Tommy,” he called, when he heard Tommy’s tall rubber boots splashing along behind him, “I want to ask you something.”
“Hey, yourself,” Tommy called back, “I want to ask you something, too. What have you done to make my muskrat run away from his pond? And all my skunks? And the rabbits? Huh? They’re all up at my barn!”