ierce hunting cry of Hooty, he wasn't so
sure about Hooty being stupid, and he always took care to sit perfectly
still in the darkness, lest Hooty's great ears should hear him and
Hooty's great eyes, made for seeing in the dark, should find him. No,
in the night Blacky was not at all sure that Hooty was stupid.

But in the daytime he was sure. You see, he quite forgot the fact that
the brightness of day is to Hooty what the blackness of night is to him.
So, because Hooty would simply sit still and hiss and snap his bill,
instead of trying to catch his tormentors or flying away, Blacky called
him stupid. He felt sure that Hooty would stay right where he was now,
and he hoped that Mrs. Hooty would lose her temper and leave the nest
where she was sitting on those two eggs and join Hooty to help him try
to drive away that noisy crew.

But Hooty isn't stupid. Not a bit of it. The minute he found out that
Blacky and his friends had discovered him, he thought of Mrs. Hooty and
the two precious eggs in the old nest of Redtail the Hawk close by.

"Mrs. Hooty mustn't be disturbed," thought he. "That will never do at
all. I must lead these black rascals away where they won't discover Mrs.
Hooty. I certainly must."

So he spread his broad wings and blundered away among the trees a little
way. He didn't fly far because the instant he started to fly that whole
noisy crew with the exception of Blacky were after him. Because he
couldn't use his claws or bill while flying, they grew bold enough to
pull a few feathers out of his back. So he flew only a little way to a
thick hemlock-tree, where it wasn't easy for the Crows to get at him,
and where the light didn't hurt his eyes so much. There he rested a few
minutes and then did the same thing over again. He meant to lead
those bothersome Crows into the darkest part of the Green Forest and
there--well, he could see better there, and it might be that one of them
would be careless enough to come within reach. No, Hooty wasn't stupid.
Certainly not.

Blacky awoke to that fact as he sat in the top of a tall pine-tree
silently watching. He could see Mrs. Hooty on the nest, and as the noise
of Hooty's tormentors sounded from farther and farther away, she settled
herself more comfortably and closed her eyes. Blacky could imagine that
she was smiling to herself. It was clear that she had no intention of
going to help Hooty. His splendid plan had failed just because stupid
Hooty, who wasn't s