Presently there was the faint sound of tiny feet running. The grass moved ever so little over the small path Reddy was watching. Suddenly he sprang, and his two black paws came down together on something that gave a pitiful squeak. Reddy had caught a mouse without even seeing it. He had known just where to jump by the movement of the grass. Presently Tommy caught one the same way. Then, because they knew that the mice right around there were frightened, they moved on to another part of the meadows.
“I know where there are some young woodchucks,” said Tommy, who had unsuccessfully tried for one of them that very morning.
“Where?” demanded Reddy.
“Over by that old tree on the edge of the meadow,” replied Tommy. “It isn’t the least bit of use to try for them. They don’t go far enough away from their hole, and their mother keeps watch all the time. There she is now.”
Sure enough, there sat old Mrs. Chuck, looking, at that distance, for all the world like a stake driven in the ground.
“Come on,” said Reddy. “We’ll have one of those chucks.”
But instead of going toward the woodchuck home, Reddy turned in quite the opposite direction. Tommy didn’t know what to make of it, but he said nothing, and trotted along behind. When they were where Reddy knew that Mrs. Chuck could no longer see them, he stopped.
“There’s no hurry,” said he. “There seems to be plenty of grasshoppers here, and we may as well catch a few. When Mrs. Chuck has forgotten all about us, we’ll go over there.”
Tommy grinned to himself. “If he thinks we are going to get over there without being seen, he’s got something to learn,” thought Tommy. But he said nothing, and, for lack of anything better to do, he caught grasshoppers. After a while, Reddy said he guessed it was about time to go chuck-hunting.
“You go straight over there,” said he. “When you get near, Mrs. Chuck will send all the youngsters down into their hole and then she will follow, only she’ll stay where she can peep out and watch you. Go right up to the hole so that she will go down out of sight, and then wait there until I come. I’ll hide right back of that tree, and then you go off as if you had given up trying to catch any of them. Go hunt meadow-mice far enough away so that she won’t be afraid. I’ll do the rest.”