Page:Hunting and trapping stories; a book for boys (IA huntingtrappings00pric).pdf/185

 they had the sly and evil rattlesnakes to feed as well as themselves and the owls, and snakes in those days were very large and numerous.

A few evenings later the sly and evil one called round to see the Mayor and said that he and his family could not work for nothing. The Mayor promised that they should have pay in plenty to eat; but alas, the sly and evil one kept demanding more and more, until at last the poor little dogs came to the end of their resources.

Then what do you think happened? The sly and evil rattlesnakes took to gobbling up the little dogs. They did not eat all the dogs at once for that would have been foolish, but they ate a few here and a few there, and the poor little dogs became very unhappy. The Mayor thought it all over until his coat turned gray with fright, for he saw nothing in the future but the whole town becoming a meal for the sly and evil ones; and to make matters worse, the owls took to killing the little dogs, too. The rattlesnakes, although they were supposed to be good, honest policeman, made no efforts to prevent it.

One day the Mayor went off to the prairie by himself to think what was best to be done, He sat down and cried hard, for he was so miserable that he wished he were dead, and lots of other things.

Now the pendulum of a clock never swings so far but that it will come back. The tide never runs out on the ebb but that it will return with the flow. So it was with the dog town. Matters seemed to be very black, but a brighter time was at hand, and much nearer than the Mayor dreamed; for the tide, so to speak, had already turned. Just at sunset, as the roller weeds were beginning to turn indigo blue in the evening light, the Mayor looked up, and what do you think he saw standing right in front of him? Why, Brother Gray Squirrel. He greeted the Mayor in a friendly fashion and asked after his health and why he looked so sad. The Mayor was very suspicious, and he had good reason to be, for was not this exactly the way that the father of owls and the sly and evil one had greeted him? He did not want to make any more friends and to have worse evils befall the dogs; but still he did not see how the dogs could be made any more uncomfortable, and Brother Gray Squirrel was so merry, and played so many pranks, and laughed so much, that the poor little Mayor's heart warmed to him. It was not long before the two were sitting close together and the Mayor was telling his troubles all over again.

Brother Squirrel listened quietly to the end and then he remarked; "This is a bad business, but you never should have had anything to do with