Uncle Wiggily got safely past the tent, but the dogs were almost up to him now.  One of them was just going to catch him by his left hind leg, when one of the Gypsy men cried out: 

“Grab him, Biter!  Grab him!  We’ll have rabbit potpie for dinner; that’s what we’ll have!”

Wasn’t that a perfectly dreadful way to talk about our Uncle Wiggily?  But just wait, if you please.

Biter, the bad dog, was just going to grab the rabbit, when all of a sudden, Uncle Wiggily saw a big hole in the ground.

“That’s what I’m looking for!” he exclaimed.  “I’m going down there, and hide away from these dogs!”

So into the hole he popped, valise, crutch and all, and oh! how glad he was to get into the cool, quiet darkness, leaving those savage, barking dogs outside.  But wait a moment longer, if you please.

Biter and Browser stopped short at the hole.

“He’s gone—­gotten clean away!” exclaimed Browser.  “Isn’t that too bad?”

“No, we’ll get him yet!” cried Biter.  “Here, you watch at this hole, while I go get a pail of water.  We’ll pour the water down, under the ground where the rabbit is, and that will make him come out, and we’ll eat him.”

“Good!” cried Browser.  So while he stood there and watched, Biter went for the water.  But, mind you, Uncle Wiggily had sharp ears and he heard what they were saying, and what do you think he did?

Why, with his sharp claws he went right to work, and he dug, and dug, and dug in the back part of that underground place, until he had made another hole, far off from the first one, and he crawled out of that, with his crutch and valise, just as Biter was pouring the water down the first hole.

“Ah, ha!  I think this will astonish those dogs!” thought Uncle Wiggily, and he took a peep at them from behind a bush where they couldn’t see him, and then he hopped on through the woods, to look for more adventures, leaving the dogs still pouring water.

And one happened to him shortly after that, as I shall tell you on the next page, when, in case the rocking chair doesn’t tip over backwards and spill out the sofa cushion into the rubber plant, the story will be about Uncle Wiggily and the monkey.

STORY X

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE MONKEY

Let me see, we left those two bad dogs pouring water down the hole, to get Uncle Wiggily out, didn’t we?  And the old gentleman rabbit fooled them, didn’t he?  He got out of another hole that he dug around by the back door, you remember.

Well, I just wish you could have seen those two dogs, after they had poured pail after pail of water down the hole, and no rabbit came floating up.

“This hole must go all the way down to China!” said Browser, breathing very fast.

“Yes, I’m tired of carrying water,” said Biter.  And just then another dog cried out: