BOBBY COON is afraid! Yes, Sir, Bobby Coon is afraid! He doesn't dare go with me to look at that half-eaten chicken over on the Green Meadows. He's a coward, that's what he is!”
 
Reddy Fox muttered this to himself as he trotted¹ away from Bobby Coon's big hollow-tree in the Green Forest. Reddy was right, and he was wrong. He was right in thinking that Bobby Coon was afraid. Bobby was afraid, but that didn't make him a coward. You see, he couldn't see what good it would do him to go see that half-eaten chicken way out there in the Green Meadows so far away from trees. Bobby is like Happy Jack² Squirrel,—he never feels really safe unless there is a tree close at hand to climb, for Bobby's legs are not very long, and though he can run fast for a little distance, he soon gets out of breath. Then he climbs the nearest tree. But if there had been any really good reason for going, Bobby would have gone even though he was afraid, and that shows that he wasn't a coward.
 
But Reddy Fox likes to think himself very brave and every one else a coward. So he trotted along with his nose turned up in scorn because Bobby Coon was afraid. He was disappointed, too, was Reddy Fox. You see he had hoped to get Bobby to go with him and when they got there that Bobby would go close to the half-eaten chicken and try to find out who had left it on the Green Meadows, and for what reason. Reddy, who is always suspicious, thought that there might be a trap, and if so, Bobby would find it, and then Reddy would know without running any danger himself. That shows how sly he is.
 
But as long as Bobby wouldn't go, there was nothing for Reddy to do but to try the same plan with Jimmy Skunk³, and so he headed straight for Jimmy Skunk's house. Now deep down in his heart Reddy Fox hated Jimmy Skunk, and more than once he had tried to get Jimmy into trouble. But now, as he saw Jimmy sitting on his doorstep, Reddy looked as pleasant as only Reddy can. He smiled as if Jimmy were his very best friend.
 
“Good morning, Jimmy Skunk. I'm glad to see you,” said Reddy. “I hope you are feeling well this morning.”
 
Now Jimmy had had a good breakfast of fat beetles⁴, and he was feeling very good-natured. But he wasn't fooled by Reddy's pleasant ways. To himself he thought, “I wonder what mischief⁵ Reddy Fox is up to,” but aloud he said: “Good morning, Reddy Fox. You are looking very fine and handsome this morning. Of course no one who is as big and brave as you are is afraid of the stranger with the terrible voice who has frightened the rest of us so for the last few nights.”
 
Now all the time he was saying this, Jimmy knew perfectly⁶ well that Reddy was afraid, and he turned his head to hide a smile as Reddy swelled⁷ up to look very big and important and replied: “Oh, my, no! No, indeed, certainly not! I'm not afraid of anybody or anything. By the way, I saw a strange thing down on the Green Meadows early this morning. It was a half-eaten chicken hidden in a clump⁸ of grass and bushes. I wondered if you left it there.”
 
Jimmy Skunk pricked⁹ up his ears. “No,” said he, “I didn't leave it there. I haven't taken a chicken from Farmer Brown's this spring, and I haven't been up to his hen-house for more than a week. Who do you suppose could have left it there?”
 
“I haven't the least idea unless—” Reddy looked this way and that to make sure that they were alone—“unless it was the stranger who has frightened every one but me,” he finished in a whisper.
 
Jimmy pricked his ears up more than ever. “Do you really suppose it could have been?” he asked.
 
“Come down there with me and see for yourself,” replied Reddy. And Jimmy said he would.