That was enough to start Sammy Jay straight for Farmer Brown’s dooryard.  Of course Bowser wasn’t to be seen.  Sammy hung around and watched.  Twice he saw Farmer Brown’s boy come to the door with a worried look on his face and heard him whistle and call for Bowser.  Then there wasn’t the slightest doubt in Sammy’s mind that something had happened to Bowser.

“Old Man Coyote knows something about it, too,” muttered Sammy, as he turned his head on one side and scratched his pointed cap thoughtfully.  “He can’t fool me.  That old rascal knows where Bowser is, or what has happened to him, and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he had something to do with it.  I almost know he did from the way he grinned.”

The day was not half over before all through the Green Forest and over the Green Meadows had spread the report that Bowser the Hound was no more.

CHAPTER X

HOW REDDY FOX INVESTIGATED

    In-vest-i-gate if you would know
    That something is or isn’t so.

    Bowser the Hound.

To in-vest-i-gate something means to try to find out about it.  Reddy Fox had heard from so many different ones about the disappearance of Bowser that he finally made up his mind that he would in-vest-i-gate and find out for himself if it were true that Bowser was no longer at home in Farmer Brown’s dooryard.  If it were true,—­well, Reddy had certain plans of his own in regard to Farmer Brown’s henhouse.

Reddy had begun by doubting that story because it seemed to have come first from Old Man Coyote.  Reddy would doubt anything with which Old Man Coyote was concerned.  But Reddy had finally come to believe that something certainly had happened because half a dozen times during the day he had heard Farmer Brown’s boy whistle and whistle and call and call.

Just as soon as the Black Shadows came creeping out from the Purple Hills, Reddy started up towards Farmer Brown’s.  He didn’t go directly there, because he never goes directly anywhere if there is the least chance in the world that any one may be watching him.  But as he slipped along in the blackest of the Black Shadows, he was all the time working nearer and nearer to Farmer Brown’s dooryard.  Although he was inclined to think it was true that Bowser was not there, he was far too wise to take any unnecessary risk.  He approached Farmer Brown’s dooryard just as carefully as if he knew Bowser to be in his little house as usual.  He kept in the Black Shadows.  He crouched so low that he seemed hardly more than a Black Shadow himself.  Every two or three steps he stopped to look, listen, and test the air with his keen nose.