fast on Mr. and Mrs. Quack, Reddy Fox crouched behind
Paddy's dam and waited.

Watching Reddy and the Ducks, the hunter almost forgot Lightfoot the
Deer. Mr. and Mrs. Quack were getting very near to where Reddy was
waiting for them. The hunter was tempted to get up and frighten those
Ducks. He didn't want Reddy Fox to have them, because he hoped some day
to get them himself.

"I suppose," thought he, "I was foolish not to shoot them when I had
the chance. They are too far away now, and it looks very much as if that
red rascal will get one of them. I believe I'll spoil that red scamp's
plans by frightening them away. I don't believe that Deer will be back
here to-day anyway, so I may as well save those Ducks."

But the hunter did nothing of the kind. You see, just as he was getting
ready to step out from his hiding-place, Sammy Jay arrived. He perched
in a tree close to the end of Paddy's dam and at once he spied Reddy
Fox. It didn't take him a second to discover what Reddy was hiding there
for. "Thief, thief, thief!" screamed Sammy, and then looked down at
Reddy with a mischievous look in his sharp eyes. There is nothing Sammy
Jay delights in more than in upsetting the plans of Reddy Fox. At the
sound of Sammy's voice, Mr. and Mrs. Quack swam hurriedly towards the
middle of the pond. They knew exactly what that warning meant. Reddy Fox
looked up at Sammy Jay and snarled angrily. Then, knowing it was useless
to hide longer, he bounded away through the Green Forest to hunt
elsewhere.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE HUNTER LOSES HIS TEMPER

The hunter, hidden near the pond of Paddy the Beaver, chuckled silently.
That is to say, he laughed without making any sound. The hunter thought
the warning of Mr. and Mrs. Quack by Sammy Jay was a great joke on
Reddy. To tell the truth, he was very much pleased. As you know, he
wanted those Ducks himself. He suspected that they would stay in that
little pond for some days, and he planned to return there and shoot them
after he had got Lightfoot the Deer. He wanted to get Lightfoot first,
and he knew that to shoot at anything else might spoil his chance of
getting a shot at Lightfoot.

"Sammy Jay did me a good turn," thought the hunter, "although he doesn't
know it. Reddy Fox certainly would have caught one of those Ducks had
Sammy not come along just when he did. It would have been a shame to
have had one of them caught by that Fox. I mean to get one, and I hope
both of them, mys