“How—when—where!” barked Watch excitedly. “We don’t have to tell that to Tommy—we can show it to him. Quick, Nibble! How did Silvertip get into the chicken coop? Tommy’ll be home from school any minute.”
So Nibble took him around to the little back door. “That fox is certainly clever,” sniffed Watch. “He’s gnawed the hook right off. I’ve smelt him around here dozens of times, but I never thought of looking inside of the coop for him.” Then he lifted it with his nose, just as Silvertip had done, but he was too big to crawl in.
It was Nibble who squeezed through and took a hop on to the soft straw of the chicken coop floor. Then he sat up to sniff around. The hens were scratching busily, but the rooster was dozing off a full crop on his perch. Nibble poked his nose into a box of feed and the bird next to him went, “Cut, cut!” That woke the rooster. He opened his eye and caught sight of Nibble’s whiskers.
“Er—er—err, I’m Chanticleer!” he crowed. “And you’re the rascal who stole my beautiful young wife, Specklefeather, this morning! You’re the one who took Stripedwing, the best setting hen ever a rooster owned, and dear little red-wattled Minorca—and all the rest who’ve been snatched from my perches. Your time has come! I’ll show you——” and he flapped down and began to peck poor Nibble and kick him with those long spurs roosters wear on their legs.
Nibble visits the chicken coop.
“Wait a minute, wait a minute!” Nibble cried. But the rooster wouldn’t listen. Then a voice behind Nibble called, “Here, here,” and he darted under the perches and squeezed into a dark nest beside a hen.
“There,” she clucked. “That old bully never comes here. It isn’t proper for a rooster to come into the nesting corner. Poor Stripedwing. She used to set in here most of the time because he was so cruel to her. And he killed our son because Minorca was in love with him. I wish the fox had taken him.”
Nibble peeked out again and saw the rooster strutting around as though he’d really done something grand, calling on the hens to admire him. And now he could hear Watch shouting, “Come along, Tommy—come quick!” In a minute more he was barking outside the front door, and Tommy opened it.
“What’s the matter?” asked Tommy. Out hopped Nibble Rabbit. “However did you get in here?” gasped the little boy. And with that Nibble slipped through the little back door as neat as you please. Maybe Tommy didn’t whistle! And maybe he wasn’t still more surprised when he saw the hook all gnawed! But maybe he wasn’t maddest of all when Nibble and Watch took him across the field to Silvertip’s fence corner, all full of feathers, with poor dead Specklefeather lying in the middle of it!