Chapter 8 - Page 2

uncomfortable.

"I don't know what I can do," he said. "I spoke to the stranger--asked him who he was. And he wouldn't answer me."

"Can't you frighten him away?" Tommy Fox inquired. "Fly right over his head and give him a blow with your wing as you pass!"

Solomon Owl coughed. He was embarrassed, to say the least.

"He's afraid!" Fatty Coon cried. And both he and Tommy Fox kept repeating, over and over again, "He's afraid! He's afraid! He's afraid!"

It was really more than Solomon Owl could stand.

"I'm not!" he retorted angrily. "Watch me and you'll see!" And without another word he darted out of the tree and swooped down upon the stranger, just brushing the top of his head. Solomon Owl knew at once that he had knocked something off the top of that dreadful head--something that fell to the ground and made Jimmy Rabbit jump nervously.

Then Solomon returned to his perch in the tree.

"He hasn't moved," he said. "But I knocked off his hat."

"You took off the top of his head!" cried Fatty Coon in great excitement. "Look! The inside of his head is afire."

And peering down from the tree-top, Solomon Owl saw that Fatty Coon had told the truth.