That remark made Fatty Coon angry.  And he wished that Jimmy hadn’t the pink-eye.  He would have liked to make an end of him right then and there.

“What do you mean?” he shouted.  “Robber nothing!  I’m just as good as you are!”

“Of course, of course!” Jimmy said hastily.  “It’s your face, you know, That black patch covers your eyes just like a robber’s mask.  That’s why we want you to be the robber.”

Fatty had slipped down his tree to the ground; and now he looked down into the creek.  It was just as Jimmy said.  Fatty had never thought of it before, but the black patch of short fur across the upper part of his face made him look exactly like a robber.

“Come on!” said Jimmy.  “We can’t play the game without you.”

“Well—­all right!” said Fatty.  He began to feel proud of his mask.  “What shall I do?”

“You wait right here,” Jimmy ordered.  “Hide behind that tree.  We’ll go into the woods.  And when we come back past this spot you jump out and say ‘Hands up!’ ...  You understand?”

“Of course!” said Fatty.  “But hurry up!  Don’t be gone long.”

“Leave that to us,” said Jimmy Rabbit.  He winked at his brother; and they started off together.

Fatty Coon did not see that wink.  If he had, he wouldn’t have waited there all the afternoon for those Rabbit brothers to return.  They never came back at all.  And they told everybody about the trick they had played on Fatty Coon.  For a long time after that wherever Fatty went the forest-people called “Robber!” after him.  And Jasper Jay was the most annoying of all, because whenever he shouted “Robber!” he always laughed so loudly and so long.  His hoarse screech echoed through the woods.  And the worst of it was, everybody knew what he was laughing at.

XVII

FATTY FINDS THE MOON

Wandering through the woods one day, Fatty Coon’s bright eyes caught a strange gleam from something—­something that shone and glittered out of the green.  Fatty wanted to see what it was, though he hardly thought it was anything to eat.  But whenever he came upon something new he always wanted to examine it.  So now Fatty hurried to see what the strange thing was.

It was the oddest thing he had ever found—­flat, round, and silvery; and it hung in the air, under a tree, just over Fatty’s head.  Fatty Coon looked carefully at the bright thing.  He walked all around it, so he could see it from all sides.  And at last he thought he knew what it was.  He made up his mind that it was the moon!

He had often seen the moon up in the sky; and here it was, just the same size exactly, hanging so low that he could have reached it with his paw.  He saw nothing strange in that; for he knew that the moon often touched the earth.  Had he not seen it many a time, resting on the side of Blue Mountain?  One night he had asked his mother if he might go up on the mountain to play with the moon; but she had only laughed.  And here, at last, was the moon come to him!  Fatty was so excited that he ran home as fast as he could go, to tell his mother, and his brother Blackie, and Fluffy and Cutey, his sisters.