Chapter 16 - Page 2

Crow told them. "It's more like a game of tag."

"If only Dodger would run away!" Nimble said under his breath. "I'll stop a minute and see if he won't." So he stood still, with his nose all but touching the ground.

Dodger the Deer did not run. But he paused and stood exactly as Nimble was standing.

So they eyed each other for a while. And neither of them said a word.

"Come!" cried old Mr. Crow. "This will never do. Give us more action!"

And then Dodger the Deer looked up at Mr. Crow and Jasper Jay and spoke.

"If you want more action why don't you two furnish it?" he asked.

"That's a good idea!" Nimble exclaimed. "Let's see a mock battle up in the tree!"

But Mr. Crow replied hoarsely that he had to meet a friend down the valley. "I must be flapping along," he said. And off he went.

Jasper Jay grinned and winked at Nimble and Dodger behind Mr. Crow's back. And then with a loud squall--which might have meant almost anything--he too flew away.

"That was the liveliest mock battle we ever had," Nimble remarked to his friend Dodger.

Dodger agreed with what he said.

Nimble's mother gasped when she saw her son a little later.

"You're a terrible sight!" she told him severely. "What have you been doing?"

"I've been having fun with Dodger the Deer," Nimble explained. "But to tell the truth, it wasn't as much fun as I had expected."