able to get
anything to eat. Do you wonder that he howled?

Old Man Coyote, trotting along on his way home, heard that howl and
understood it. Again he grinned that wicked grin of his, and stopped to
listen. "I don't think he'll hunt me again in a hurry," he muttered,
then trotted on. Poor Bowser! Hunting for anything but his home was
farthest from his thoughts.

CHAPTER V

BOWSER SPENDS A BAD NIGHT

There's nothing like just sticking to
The thing you undertake to do.
There'll be no cause then, though you fail,
To hang your head or drop your tail.

_Bowser the Hound._

Bowser was lost, utterly lost. He hadn't the least idea in which
direction Farmer Brown's house was. In fact he hadn't the least idea
which way to turn to find any house. It was the most lonely kind of a
lonely place to which Old Man Coyote had led him and there played the
trick on him which had caused him to tumble into the strange river.

But Bowser couldn't stand still for long. Already jolly, round, red Mr.
Sun was going to bed behind the Purple Hills, and Bowser knew that cold
as had been the day, the night would be still colder. He must keep
moving until he found a shelter. If he didn't he would freeze. So
whimpering and whining, Bowser limped along.

Bowser was not afraid to be out at night as some folks are. Goodness,
no! In fact, on many a moonlight night Bowser had hunted Reddy Fox or
Granny Fox all night long. Never once had he felt lonesome then. But now
it was very, very different. You see, on those nights when he had hunted
he always had known where he was. He had known that at any time he
could go straight home if he wanted to. That made all the difference in
the world.

It would have been bad enough, being lost this way, had he been feeling
at his best. Being lost always makes one feel terribly lonesome.
Lonesomeness is one of the worst parts of the feeling of being lost. But
added to this was the fact that Bowser was really not in fit condition
to be out at all. He was wet, tired, lame and hungry. Do you wonder that
he whimpered and whined as he limped along over the hard snow, and
hadn't the least idea whether he was headed towards home or deeper into
the great woods?

For a long time he kept on until it seemed to him he couldn't drag one
foot after another. Then quite suddenly something big and dark loomed up
in front of him. It really wasn't as big as it seemed. It was a little
house, a sugar