“He learned to use his wits,” replied Old Man Coyote, with a provoking grin.  “He learned to use his wits, that’s all.”

“Please tell me about it, Mr. Coyote.  Please,” begged Peter.

“Once upon a time,” began Old Man Coyote, “so my grandfather told me, and he got it from his grandfather, who got it from his grandfather, who—­”

“I know,” interrupted Peter.  “It happened in the days when the world was young.”

Old Man Coyote looked at Peter very hard as if he had half a mind not to tell the story, but Peter looked so innocent and so eager that he began again.  “Once upon a time lived the great-great-ever-so-great-grandfather of Yap-Yap, the very first of all the Prairie Dogs, and his name was Yap-Yap too.  He was own cousin to old Mr. Woodchuck, who of course wasn’t old then, and the two cousins looked much alike, save that Yap-Yap was a little smaller than Mr. Woodchuck and perhaps a little smarter looking.

“From the very beginning Yap-Yap was a keen lover of the great open spaces.  Trees were all very well for those who liked them, but he preferred to have nothing above him but the blue, blue sky.  It seemed to him that he never could find a big enough open space, so he never stayed very long in any one place, but kept pushing on and on, looking for a spot in the Great World that would just suit him.  At last he came to the edge of the Green Forest, and before him, as far as he could see, stretched the Green Meadows.  At least it was like the Green Meadows, only a million thousand times as big as the Green Meadows we are on now, Peter, and was really the Great Prairie.

“Yap-Yap looked and looked, then he drew a long breath of pure joy and started out across the green grass.  On and on he went, until when he sat up and looked this way or that way or the other way he could see nothing but grass and flowers, and over him was naught but the blue, blue sky.  He had found the great open space of which he had dreamed, and he was happy.  So he ate and slept and played with the Merry Little Breezes and grew fat.

“Then one day came Skimmer the Swallow and brought him news of the hard times which had come to the rest of the Great World and how as a result the big and the strong were hunting the small and the weak in order that they themselves might live.  When Skimmer had gone, Yap-Yap grew uneasy.  What if some of the big and strong people he had known should come out there in quest of food and should find him?  There was no place in which to hide.  There was no cave or hollow log.

“Yap-Yap looked at the strong claws Old Mother Nature had given him and an idea came to him.  He would dig a hole in the ground.  So he dug a hole on a long slant very much like the hole of Johnny Chuck; but when it was finished a little doubt crept into his head and grew and grew.  What was to prevent some one who was very hungry from digging him out?  So he moved on a little way and started another hole, and this time he made it almost straight down.  Every day he made that hole deeper until it was many feet deep.  Then he made a turn in it and dug a long tunnel, at the end of which he hollowed out a comfortable bedroom and lined it with grass.  When it was finished he was quite satisfied.