y to this door,"
Spot growled. "There can't be many more left in the pasture. I'm going
to lie down behind this hummock and wait till they come out."

So he hid a little way off and watched closely.

He had been there a long time when Mr. Crow at last flew low over the
pasture and alighted in a tree near-by.

"What are you waiting for?" he asked Spot.

"Woodchucks!" said Spot. "This burrow is full of them."

"Are you sure?" Mr. Crow inquired.

"I chased eight of them home," Spot explained.

"That's odd," said Mr. Crow. "There have been only three living here
lately. And they don't live here any more."

"They don't!" Spot cried.

"No!" Mr. Crow told him. "They moved this afternoon."

Old dog Spot sprang to his feet.

"Where did they go?" he demanded.

"Ah!" Mr. Crow croaked. "That's telling." And he would say no more.

Then Spot went back to the farmyard.

Meanwhile the Woodchuck family were working hard, digging a new home for
themselves at the other end of the pasture. They had all met at last on
the edge of the clover patch. And Mr. Woodchuck had declared that they
must move at once, because it wasn't safe to live in their old house any
longer. He said that old dog Spot would be sure to keep an eye on it for
some time.

They soon found a place that suited them all very well.

"We'll live here," said Mr. Woodchuck to his wife and their son Billy.
"You two can take turns digging while I sit up and watch for old dog
Spot. After all the running I did to-day it wouldn't be safe for me to
do any digging."

That was Mr. Woodchuck's plan. And they followed it.

XIX

OFF FOR THE CIRCUS

Great circus posters had covered one side of Farmer Green's barn for
weeks. Ever since some men came and pasted them on the barn Johnnie
Green had studied them carefully. He had practiced bareback riding on
his pony, Twinkleheels. He had tried a high dive into the mill pond from
the top of the dam. And much to old dog Spot's disgust Johnnie had tried
to make him jump through a hoop covered with paper.

Spot had refused flatly to do anything of the kind. If he had known that
his young master had half a notion to teach him to jump through a hoop
of fire Spot would have run away--at least until circus time had come
and gone.

"What puts all these queer ideas into Johnnie's head?" the old dog asked
his friend Ebenezer, the horse, one day.

"Don't you know?" said Ebenezer. "It's those circus pictures. Johnnie
w