WHEN old Granny Fox found that Old Man Coyote was not at his usual napping-place, she was sure that Reddy Fox must have been very stupid and thought that he saw him there when he didn't. She hurried to the Laughing Brook¹ and waded³ in it for a little way in order to destroy her scent⁴ so that Bowser the Hound would not know in which direction she had gone. You know water is always the friend of little animals who leave scent in their footsteps. Bowser came baying up to the edge of the Laughing Brook, and there he stopped, for his wonderful nose could not follow Granny in the water and he could not tell whether she had gone up or down or across the brook.

 

But Bowser is not one to give up easily. No, indeed! He had learned many of Granny's tricks, and now he knew well enough what Granny had done. At least, Bowser thought that he knew.

 

“She'll wade² a little way, and then she will come out of the water, so all I have to do is to find the place where she has come out, and there I will find her tracks again,” said he, and with his nose to the ground he hurried down one bank of the Laughing Brook.

 

He went as far as he thought Granny could have waded, but there was no trace of her. Then he crossed the brook, and with his nose still to the ground, ran back to the starting place along the other bank.

 

“She didn't go down the brook, so she must have gone up,” said Bowser, and started up the brook as eagerly as he had gone down. After running as far as he thought Granny could possibly have waded, Bowser crossed over and ran back along the other bank to the starting place without finding any trace of Granny Fox. At last, with a foolish and ashamed air, Bowser gave it up and started for home, and all the time Granny Fox was lying in plain sight, watching him. Yes, Sir, she was watching him and laughing to herself. You see, she knew perfectly⁵ well that Bowser depends more on his nose than on his eyes, and that when he is running with his nose to the ground, he can see very little about him. So she had simply waded down the Laughing Brook to a flat rock in the middle of it, and on this she had stretched herself out and kept perfectly still. Twice Bowser had gone right past without seeing her. She enjoyed seeing him fooled so much that for the time being she quite forgot about Old Man Coyote and the failure of her clever plan to make trouble for him.

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