Nibble sat straight up and listened hard. For Louie sounded just like Chatter Squirrel the night of the Terrible Storm when he was so terribly afraid. “My whiskers, but isn’t Tommy wonderful,” he breathed to Watch. “You and the Red Cow can scare that Man when you can reach him, but Tommy scares him without doing anything.” And he came close up to Tommy’s tall rubber boots and cocked his head on one side, trying to see how Tommy did it.
“I know you’ll promise,” Tommy was saying, “and you’ll keep it, too, or else I’ll know about it.” He just meant he and Watch would find Louie’s footprints.
But Louie saw that rabbit sitting by Tommy and looking exactly as though he were talking to him.
“And if you want your traps,” Tommy went on, “you’ll have to get that muskrat to find them.” He just meant he’d thrown them into the pond.
But Louie Thomson didn’t know what to think of that. He guessed perhaps he’d better leave Tommy Peele and his wild things very much alone.
CHAPTER V
NIBBLE TELLS ONE SECRET AND HEARS ANOTHER
Now when Tommy Peele followed Watch back to the woods it was because he thought the old dog was chasing Nibble Rabbit. Then he made up his mind Nibble had warned Watch about that bad Louie Thomson. He never dreamed Nibble had whispered a secret that belonged to the Red Cow. So as soon as he’d made Louie promise to behave, he whistled to Watch and began to lead the Red Cow away so Louie could climb down.
Well, right then the Red Cow remembered that secret she had to show him. So she insisted on leading him.
She fairly galloped around the end of the thicket, with Tommy running after her in his tall rubber boots and Watch bounding after him. But Nibble took a short cut through his tunnel. And he met Doctor Muskrat coming to meet him.
“Climp, clump, climp, clump!” went a sound outside.