ite a spell until Jimmy, beginning to fear that he wasn't going
to have the fun he'd laid out for himself, began to laugh in a mighty
disagreeable way as he said:

"'If I'd thought you were only bragging when you told about rambling
over the farm, I wouldn't have wasted my time around here.'

"'You didn't get any brag from me,' poor Bobby said, his voice
trembling as if he wanted to cry. 'I'm going to do just as I allowed,
and you two fellows want to follow me close, so's to make certain I
wipe up the earth with Mr. Towser, if he has the nerve to show himself
where I am.'

"Did you ever hear anything so foolish as that? A coon allowing that
he could get away with a dog like Mr. Towser! I had to follow when
Bobby started; but I made out that I couldn't travel very fast owing
to my left hind foot's being sore, and you'd better believe that I
didn't try very hard to get a front place in the procession, though I
could have run all around Bobby and Jimmy if I'd tried. You can set it
down under your collar that I took good care to smell my way along
mighty cautious, 'cause I wasn't aching to come up against anything
that outclassed me.

"Well, Bobby kept straight on, heading for Mr. Man's barn, and I knew
enough about the lay of the land to see that he'd strike the farm
pretty near to where Mr. Towser's house stood, so my feet got sorer
and sorer till, before we were very far from the bushes, it was about
as much as I could do to hop. Jimmy kept egging Bobby on, and this
took up his attention so much that he didn't give any heed to me for
quite a spell, when I heard him whispering:

"'Come on, Bunny; do you want to miss all the fun?'

"It was on my tongue's end to tell him that all the fun we'd be likely
to have that night would be what we might get out of seeing poor Bobby
killed; but I thought we'd soon be having trouble enough without my
trying to stir up any more just then, so I said, talking as if it were
all I could do to keep from crying:

"'If your tongue was aching same as my foot is, you couldn't even
yip.'

"Then I hung back a little more, and it seemed as if poor Bobby must
have run ahead considerably faster, for in another minute I heard Mr.
Towser growling furiously, and at the same time came a squeak which
told for a certainty that Bobby Coon had come to an end of his
rambling. That dog must have got the scent of us while we were a long
distance away, and laid low till all he had to do was snap his te