having once found his way to the prairie dog village, benny badger often visited it.

and it is said, by those who know, that while he was there he always had a much pleasanter time than the villagers themselves.

so little did the prairie dogs enjoy benny badger's society that whenever one of them spied benny nearing the settlement he never failed to jerk his tail up and down and call out the news.

at the sound of the alarm—a high-pitched chatter—every prairie dog who[82] wasn't at home scurried for his hole as fast as he could scamper.

benny badger always had to smile when he saw the villagers tumbling through their doorways. they couldn't have done anything that would have suited him better. had there been a single one among the prairie dogs that wasn't a dunce he would have run away from his hole, outside the village, to hide somewhere until benny badger left the place.

but the prairie dogs were too stupid to think of such a trick. they knew no better than to rush into their houses—which was exactly what benny badger wanted them to do.

and if anything happened now and then to make matters specially unpleasant for the prairie dogs, it never troubled benny badger. he seemed to grow fatter and happier than ever as time passed.[83]

but at last he heard a bit of news one day that made him feel quite glum.

a young deer mouse claimed to have overheard a rancher talking—the rancher that lived about a mile from benny badger's home. and the deer mouse reported that the man was going to get rid of the whole prairie dog family. "he says they eat too much grass, and dig too many holes," the deer mouse declared.

though the news upset benny, and quite took away his appetite, for a few moments, he began to cast about for a way to prevent such a sad affair. if you could have seen him with a worried look on his face, anxiously asking everybody he met to give him advice, you would have thought that he felt very, very sorry for the prairie dogs.

but such was not the case at all. benny badger was feeling sorry for himself; for[84] he knew that if the rancher drove the villagers away he would miss them terribly. benny had almost given up hope of finding a way to put an end to the rancher's plan when the deer mouse told him another bit of news.

"he's going to build a new fence out this way—the rancher is!" the deer mouse informed benny. "it's coming this side of the prairie dog village. and that's why the rancher wants to get rid of the prairie dogs."

"how do you know this?" benny badger asked his small friend. "have you been eavesdropping again?"

the deer mouse blushed. and since he made no reply, benny badger had to believe him.

still, benny could see no way out of his difficulty. and he went home at day-break feeling quite out of sorts.

but when he awoke, right in the middle of the day, a happy thought popped into his head.

he was so excited by it that he couldn't go to sleep again, though the sun was shining brightly.