e crack of the door and before I could get away he cried, oh! so
mournfully:

"'Please don't leave me, Bunny, dear, when I'm in such terrible
trouble!'

"Dear knows, I'd have stayed by him until the cows came home if I
could have done the poor fellow any good, but I couldn't, and the
tears almost blinded me as I hopped off into the bushes just in time
to be well hidden before that gang of young ruffians came up.

"'Hurrah! We've got a squirrel!' Mr. Man's boy Tommy cried as he
picked up the box and squinted into it. 'Hurry and we'll put him into
that cage we made yesterday!'

"Then off the whole crowd ran, and poor Cheeko with them. I'd
forgotten all about Jimmy Hedgehog, because of feeling so sorry for
Cheeko, and was wiping my eyes with my ears, when he squeaked, poking
his nose out of the hole he had dodged into when the boys came up:

"'What's the reason we shouldn't go and see what they do with Cheeko?
It won't be much of a trick to keep out of sight and follow them at
the same time.'

"I hadn't anything in particular to do just then, and, if you'll
believe it, I forgot that Mrs. Bunny had told me, not more than half
an hour before, that Mr. Man was out trying to kill something.

"Off Jimmy and I went, Mr. Crow calling after us as he saw us hopping
along in the direction of Mr. Man's barn:

"'You'd better take care of your own hides, instead of following that
foolish Cheeko, who hasn't got a thing more than he deserved!'

"'You're a hard-hearted old bird!' Jimmy cried, and a deaf man could
have told by the sound of his voice that he was angry. 'There's just a
chance that we can help the poor fellow.'

"'Help nothing!' Mr. Crow cried sharply, and off he flew, as much as
to say that he washed his claws of us both.

"Well, I couldn't help feeling just a bit nervous after the old bird
had warned us; but yet, strange as it may seem, even then I didn't
think of what Mrs. Bunny had told me about Mr. Man. I followed Jimmy,
though, and it didn't take us long to come up so near the robbers that
we could hear them telling what they counted on doing with poor
Cheeko. From all I could make out, they had some kind of prison with
a wheel in it, and there he'd be made to run round and round till he
couldn't run any more.

"Of course we had to hang back when coming within sight of the barn,
and then I coaxed Jimmy to go back to the old oak; but he allowed he'd
see the last of Cheeko no matter what might happen, and i