No wonder! Crawling slowly along through the short, dry grass, came a large rattlesnake. Nearer and nearer it glided to the door of the burrow. When it was almost there, Mr. Silence Prairie Dog keeled into his house, the snake slid after him, and then silence fell. That night the village heard the rest of the story--how Mr. and Mrs. Silence Prairie Dog bit at the rattlesnake with their sharp teeth and scratched at him with their sharp claws, but could not drive him out of their nest where lay two baby prairie dogs. These two he ate for his dinner and then lay down in the deep, soft, warm nest of dried grass. How Mother Silence crept back after a long time and found the greedy old snake lying dead. Yes, truly; killed by the fierce bites of Mr. and Mrs. Silence. Now all these sad affairs made young Wish-ton-wish quite blue. Besides, when he went that afternoon to call on the Talky misses, he found that the plumpest one had gone after timothy with another young fellow. All at once he made up his mind that life was a failure and that he would run away from home. When the prairie-dog folk found out that he was gone they were very sorry. They felt sure he had been eaten by some bird of prey or by a sly coyote. "He was so wise and so handsome and so brave," said his mother; "there was no young fellow in the village who could be named in the same day with Wish-ton-wish." Most everybody praised him now that he was dead, or now that they thought he was. I wonder if it isn't rather a poor plan to wait until people are dead or far away before we say the kind things that might have made them happy when they were near? "We must not neglect our duties even in sorrow," said the father. "It is going to rain. Let us go out and put our mound into good order so that the water may not run into our burrows." They worked with a will, and found out, as everyone always does, that nothing helps sorrow and trouble so quickly as hard work. When morning came the very first one to be out of a burrow was Wish-ton-wish's mother. Perhaps she had not slept any all night. She went up to the top of the mound, then stood still with astonishment and joy; for there, on the other side of it, was Wish-ton-wish, hard at work. He was patting and smoothing the sides and making them even after the rain. "O, where have you been all night, Wish-ton-wish?" cried his mother. "I went over to the next village; I thought they might not have so many troubles as we have and perhaps I'd stay. But they have even more, mother; they have snakes and hawks and owls and coyotes and _men_, for yesterday some _men_ came there with a great tank of water and poured five barrels into one burrow. They said they were making an 'experiment.' Of course they couldn't drown anybody because the burrows run down and up in every direction. So I thought I'd come home again."