Blacky’s heart beat fast with excitement as he drew near that old tumble-down nest.  Would those two big white eggs be there?  Perhaps there would be three!  The very thought made him flap his wings a little faster.  A few more wing strokes and he would be right over the tree.  How he did hope to see those eggs!  He could almost see into the nest now.  One stroke!  Two strokes!  Three strokes!  Blacky bit his tongue to keep from giving a sharp caw of disappointment and surprise.

There were no eggs to be seen.  No, Sir, there wasn’t a sign of eggs in that old nest.  There wasn’t because —­ why, do you think?  There wasn’t because Blacky looked straight down on a great mass of feathers which quite covered them from sight, and he didn’t have to look twice to know that that great mass of feathers was really a great bird, the bird to whom those eggs belonged.

Blacky didn’t turn to come back as he had planned.  He kept right on, just as if he hadn’t seen anything, and as he flew he shivered a little.  He shivered at the thought of what might have happened to him if he had tried to steal those eggs the day before and had been caught doing it.

“I’m thankful I knew enough to leave them alone, " said he.  “Funny I never once guessed whose eggs they are.  I might have known that no one but Hooty the Horned Owl would think of nesting at this time of year.  And that was Mrs. Hooty I saw on the nest just now.  My, but she’s big!  She’s bigger than Hooty himself!  Yes, Sir, it’s a lucky thing I didn’t try to get those eggs yesterday.  Probably both Hooty and Mrs. Hooty were sitting close by, only they were sitting so still that I thought they were parts of the tree they were in.  Blacky, Blacky, the sooner you forget those eggs the better.”

Some things are best forgotten As soon as they are learned.  Who never plays with fire Will surely not get burned.

CHAPTER IV:  The Cunning Of Blacky

Now when Blacky the Crow discovered that the eggs in the old tumble-down nest of Redtail the Hawk in a lonesome corner of the Green Forest belonged to Hooty the Owl, he straightway made the best of resolutions; he would simply forget all about those eggs.  He would forget that he ever had seen them, and he would stay away from that corner of the Green Forest.  That was a very wise resolution.  Of all the people who live in the Green Forest, none is fiercer or more savage than Hooty the Owl, unless it is Mrs. Hooty.  She is bigger than Hooty and certainly quite as much to be feared by the little people.