"What fun that would be!" he exclaimed. "Then when I wanted to go out I"d have to dig my way again!"
The owl gave a queer cry. And looking quite discouraged, he flew off and left Benny Badger sitting there in the gra.s.s.
XVI
SPOILING A GAME
Though the owl left him in such a rude fashion, Benny Badger wasted no time in thinking about what had just happened. There was something far more worth while that claimed his thoughts. For the prairie dog village still remained where it had been. And as Benny looked at it he found it highly interesting.
Even as he glanced at the doorway of the nearest house he caught sight of a small head with bulging eyes, which stared at him without blinking.
Benny moved nearer. And the head promptly vanished.
Then Benny Badger smiled all over his face.
"Ah!" he exclaimed. "Here"s somebody else at home!" And he looked all around at a number of other doorways. To his great delight he saw other eyes peeping at him.
"There"s a lot of "em at home!" Benny cried with great glee.
He never felt happier in all his life. Everything was exactly as he would have wished it. And he was just taking off his coat, and trying to decide where he would begin to dig, when something happened that made him look very peevish. And he slipped his coat on again, and lay flat in the gra.s.s.
A coyote had come bounding up at exactly the wrong time! And every one of the prairie dogs promptly pulled his head out of sight.
If he noticed Benny at all, the coyote must have thought him no more than a heap of dirt. Anyhow, he paid no heed to Benny, but went stalking through the village with his tongue hanging out of his mouth, looking sharply out of the corners of his eyes at the houses he pa.s.sed.
There is no denying that Benny Badger was displeased. He wanted no sneaking coyote at hand to spoil his plans. And he was all ready to growl, when something made him change his mind and close his mouth.
The coyote walked through the village and disappeared in the distance.
And here and there heads soon began to appear in doorways.
But when Benny Badger stood up and drew nearer to them, they dropped down again.
The next moment a very angry lady rushed up and began scolding Benny Badger at the top of her voice. It was Mrs. Coyote. "Go away from this village!" she shrieked. "You"re spoiling our hunting!"
"Whose hunting?" Benny Badger asked her.
"Mine and my husband"s!" she snapped. "That was my husband that pa.s.sed by here a few minutes ago. Of course we know the Prairie Dogs will all hide when they see him. But they"re so silly that they"re sure to bob up and stare at him after he has gone along. And then"--she said--"then"s the time I dash up and grab them."
Mrs. Coyote paused and glared at Benny Badger. "You"ve spoiled my game,"
she said. "You went and showed yourself. And when they saw you, the Prairie Dogs hid again."
Benny Badger looked at Mrs. Coyote pleasantly enough.
"Why don"t you dig for them?" he asked.
But Mrs. Coyote didn"t appear to care for that idea in the least. She threatened Benny Badger with dreadful things, if he didn"t leave at once. And then she hurried on to find her husband.
Benny Badger was glad to see her go. He was not at all afraid either of Mr. or Mrs. Coyote--nor of both of them together. And though he had spoiled their game, he hardly thought that they would be able to spoil his.
XVII
THE PRAIRIE DOG VILLAGE
Having once found his way to the prairie dog village, Benny Badger often visited it.
And it is said, by those who know, that while he was there he always had a much pleasanter time than the villagers themselves.
So little did the prairie dogs enjoy Benny Badger"s society that whenever one of them spied Benny nearing the settlement he never failed to jerk his tail up and down and call out the news.
At the sound of the alarm--a high-pitched chatter--every prairie dog who wasn"t at home scurried for his hole as fast as he could scamper.
Benny Badger always had to smile when he saw the villagers tumbling through their doorways. They couldn"t have done anything that would have suited him better. Had there been a single one among the prairie dogs that wasn"t a dunce he would have run _away_ from his hole, outside the village, to hide somewhere until Benny Badger left the place.
But the prairie dogs were too stupid to think of such a trick. They knew no better than to rush into their houses--which was exactly what Benny Badger wanted them to do.
And if anything happened now and then to make matters specially unpleasant for the prairie dogs, it never troubled Benny Badger. He seemed to grow fatter and happier than ever as time pa.s.sed.
But at last he heard a bit of news one day that made him feel quite glum.
A young deer mouse claimed to have overheard a rancher talking--the rancher that lived about a mile from Benny Badger"s home. And the deer mouse reported that the man was going to get rid of the whole prairie dog family. "He says they eat too much gra.s.s, and dig too many holes,"
the deer mouse declared.
Though the news upset Benny, and quite took away his appet.i.te, for a few moments, he began to cast about for a way to prevent such a sad affair.
If you could have seen him with a worried look on his face, anxiously asking everybody he met to give him advice, you would have thought that he felt very, very sorry for the prairie dogs.
But such was not the case at all. Benny Badger was feeling sorry for himself; for he knew that if the rancher drove the villagers away he would miss them terribly. Benny had almost given up hope of finding a way to put an end to the rancher"s plan when the deer mouse told him another bit of news.
"He"s going to build a new fence out this way--the rancher is!" the deer mouse informed Benny. "It"s coming this side of the Prairie Dog village.
And that"s why the rancher wants to get rid of the Prairie Dogs."
"How do you know this?" Benny Badger asked his small friend. "Have you been eavesdropping again?"
The deer mouse blushed. And since he made no reply, Benny Badger had to believe him.
Still, Benny could see no way out of his difficulty. And he went home at day-break feeling quite out of sorts.
But when he awoke, right in the middle of the day, a happy thought popped into his head.
He was so excited by it that he couldn"t go to sleep again, though the sun was shining brightly.