Benny Badger smiled at the owl. He thought he must be fooling.

"You\'re a joker, aren\'t you?" said Benny. "But I never should have thought it—you look so glum."

The owl seemed somewhat displeased.

"I\'ve never made a joke yet," he declared, "though I\'ve no doubt I could, if I should ever want to."

Benny Badger glanced from the owl to the hole, and then back again at the strange fellow.

"You don\'t mean to say you live here, in this hole?" Benny exclaimed.

[73]

"Certainly; I do," the owl replied sharply.

Benny Badger couldn\'t understand how that could be.

"But this is a prairie dog house," he protested.... "Where\'s the chap that built it? He must be around here somewhere."

"I don\'t know where he is, and I don\'t care where he is," the owl answered. "I drove him out of this house because I wanted to live here myself. And I didn\'t trouble myself to see where he went."

Benny Badger could hardly believe what the owl told him. But he noticed that the fellow had a sharp beak, and sharp claws too.

"I should think you played a joke on the prairie dog," he remarked at last.

"Should you?" said the owl. "If it was a joke, it wasn\'t nearly as big a one[74] as I\'ll play on anybody that tries to drive me away from here.... I drove a snake away yesterday," he added. And he looked very th............