ed and became a bad dream. Yes, indeed,
it became a bad dream. It was as bad as at first it had been good. It
seemed to Granny that Bowser the Hound had become very smart, smarter
than she had ever known him to be before. Do what she would, she
couldn't fool him. Not one of all the tricks she knew, and she knew a
great many, fooled him at all. They didn't puzzle him long enough for
her to get her breath.

Bowser kept getting nearer and nearer and nearer, all in the dream, you
know, until it seemed as if his great voice sounded right at her very
heels. She was so tired that it seemed to her that she couldn't run
another step. It was a very, very real dream. You know dreams sometimes
do seem very real indeed. This was the way it was with the bad dream
of Old Granny Fox. It seemed to her that she could feel the breath of
Bowser the Hound and that his great jaws were just going to close on her
and shake her to death.

"Oh! Oh!" cried Granny and waked herself up. Her eyes flew open. Then
she gave a great sigh of relief as she realized that her terrible fright
was only a bad dream and that she was curled up right on the dear,
familiar, old, sunny knoll and not running for her life at all.

Old Granny Fox smiled to think what a fright she had had and
then,--well, she didn't know whether she was really awake or still
dreaming! No, Sir, she didn't. For a full minute she couldn't be sure
whether what she saw was real or part of that dreadful dream. You see,
she was staring into the face of Farmer Brown's boy and the muzzle of
his dreadful gun!

For just a few seconds she didn't move. She couldn't. She was too
frightened to move. Then she knew what she saw was real and not a dream
at all. There wasn't the least bit of doubt about it. That was Farmer
Brown's boy, and that was his dreadful gun! All in a flash she knew that
Farmer Brown's boy must have been hiding behind those pine boughs.

Poor Old Granny Fox! For once in her life she had been caught napping.
She hadn't the least hope in the world. Farmer Brown's boy had only to
fire that dreadful gun, and that would be the end of her. She knew it.

CHAPTER VIII: What Farmer Brown's Boy Did

In time of danger heed this rule:
Think hard and fast, but pray keep cool.
--Old Granny Fox.

Poor Old Granny Fox! She had thought that she had been in tight places
before, but never, never had she been in such a tight place as this.
There stood Farmer Brown's boy lookin