tin spoons?" he said. "He has sharper eyes
than I thought and I always knew he had sharp eyes, particularly for
bright things, but how he could see spoons in my house is more than I
can explain, for I have no spoons."

"Well, of course I do not wish to cause any trouble," said Mr. Crow,
"but I certainly saw you cleaning tin spoons. Anyway, it will be easy
to prove you have no spoons in the house by letting us search, and of
course you rather would, Mr. Coon, for that will clear you from
suspicion; that is, if we do not find them."

"Go ahead and look," said Mr. Coon, opening the door and standing aside
for them to enter. "I am glad I did not take one of those spoons," he
thought to himself, for he remembered that he had intended to do so if
Mr. Dog had not come in so unexpectedly.

Of course Mr. Crow held back and let Mr. Possum do all the hunting
until they came to Mr. Coon's bedroom, and then he said:

"I have always heard that stolen goods are often hidden between beds.
We might look there first."

Of course they found the spoons, and when Mr. Coon saw them he almost
fell over. "Who put them there? I did not," he said.

"Of course you didn't," said Mr. Crow, with a smile that plainly said:
"You are a story-teller."

"There is one spoon missing," said Mr. Possum, who had been counting
the spoons. "I had a dozen and there are only eleven here."

"He probably ate his breakfast with that one," said Mr. Crow. "Better
give it up, Mr. Coon; we have caught you and there is no use denying it
now."

"Go ahead and find it if you can," said Mr. Coon. "I did not take
those spoons and I do not know where the other spoon is, even if you
do, Mr. Crow."

"What do you mean by that?" asked Mr. Crow, beginning to hop about.

"I mean that you seemed to be pretty sure where those spoons were,"
said Mr. Coon, "and if I am not mistaken about the history of your
family, they are noted for their love of shining things fully as much
as ours."

"Come along," said Mr. Crow to Mr. Possum; "we have found your spoons,
and that is all I wanted. I cannot bother with this bad fellow, who
now wants to make out I took the spoons; but that is always the way
with thieves--they blame it on some one else if they can."

The more Mr. Coon thought about those spoons the more certain he was
that Mr. Crow had something to do with their being found in his house;
so one night about a week after he went to Mr. Crow's house and watched.