Nibble felt very wise and grown-up beside this foolish cow. She wasn’t really wild and she wasn’t really tame. Poor beast! No wonder she was scary. She didn’t know enough to be either thing properly. “Come along!” he ordered. “I’ll take you down for a drink and then you can eat the willows. If you’re like the partridge you can nip the tips off a cottonwood that your long neck will reach up to.”
So the Red Cow hove herself up to her feet, tail first, as is the custom of cows, and followed him obediently. And he showed her the way to the warm spring that was Doctor Muskrat’s front door.
It was a good thing he was polite and let her drink first. For as soon as she began dragging her clumsy toes in the muck to spread them far enough apart so she could get her nose into the water—“Clang!” went the cold steely jaws of another trap.
She jumped back, snorting and waving her tassely tail, while she cocked her eyes to try and see it. But Nibble wasn’t paying any attention to her. He was thumping and bumping as hard as ever he could with his soft furry feet and calling “Doctor Muskrat! Doctor Muskrat! Doctor Muskrat!”
“Eh?” said the old doctor as his nose came up out of the water (and the cow snorted at him harder than ever), “what’s all this?” He sniffed at her inquiringly.
“Oh, Doctor Muskrat,” Nibble almost cried. “Look! It’s more jaws!”
“Ah!” The old beast examined them wisely and shook his head. “What did I tell you? You can’t trust even Tommy Peele! He was just pretending to make friends with us so we’d forget to be afraid and he could catch us again!”
“I guess you’re right,” murmured Nibble. But he felt very badly about it—for he really liked Tommy.
Just then the Red Cow spoke up. She didn’t understand Doctor Muskrat, but she caught Tommy’s name. And although she didn’t like Tommy herself, even a stupid cow knows enough to be honest. “I told you I saw that Man,” she said to Nibble. “Well, it surely wasn’t Tommy!”
“It wasn’t, eh?” snapped Doctor Muskrat. “We’ll just see about that.” He dove again. He came up looking very puzzled. “Tommy’s jaws are still biting the mud, just where he threw them.” he reported. “We’ll watch what he does when he finds these.”