Читать книгу Billy Mink - Thornton Waldo Burgess - Страница 5

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As smart and clever as you are,

A Mink may smarter be by far.

Billy Mink.

This is what Billy Mink said to himself as he uncovered the trap which had been set for him at the entrance to one of his favorite holes in the bank of the Laughing Brook. Of course he was thinking of the trapper when he said it. At first Billy flew into a great rage. It made him angry clear to the tip of his brown tail just to think that he must now be always watching for traps where for so long there had been no danger.

At first he had thought to go on at once up the Laughing Brook and see what more he could discover. But you remember that Billy was hungry and that there was a piece of perfectly delicious fish back in that hole. He knew now just how that fish happened to be there. He knew that the trapper had put that piece of fish in there, hoping that Billy would be so eager to get it that he would be careless.

The more he smelled it, the more he wanted it. “It will serve that trapper right if I get that fish,” muttered Billy. “Perhaps it will teach him that he is not so smart as he thinks he is.”

Billy sat down and studied the trap and the entrance to the hole. The more he studied, the more sure he became that he would be running a very foolish risk if he tried to step over that trap just to get a piece of fish. You see, that trap had been very cunningly placed. But the more he smelled that fish, the more he wanted it.

Billy stroked his whiskers thoughtfully. Of course that didn’t have anything to do with it, but just the same while he was stroking them he remembered something. His eyes snapped and he grinned. Way up on the bank between the roots of a certain tree was a little hole. It was the entrance to a little underground tunnel, and that tunnel led right down to the very hole in front of which the trap was set. It really was a back door.

Billy turned and in a flash had scrambled up the bank. With his keen little nose he made sure that there was no scent of the trapper up there. He felt sure the trapper had not found that little hole between the roots of a certain tree. But though he was sure of this, he took no chances. As he approached the hole he took the greatest care to make sure no trap was in there.

There was none. Once inside the hole, Billy ran along that little tunnel, chuckling to himself. He knew that now there was no danger. He could get that fish. He did get it. He got it and ate it right there. Then he turned and ran out the way he had entered. Somehow that fish had tasted the best of any fish he ever had eaten. It was because he had outwitted the trapper.