“It’s old Whitetail the Marsh Hawk. He didn’t get us that time!” chuckled the stranger, and crept back to the delicious corn. In two minutes, they were having as good a time as before, just as if they hadn’t had a narrow escape. When they had eaten all they could hold, the stranger went back to his old fence-post and Tommy returned to his own private paths and the snug nest he had built under the old board. He was sleepy, and he curled up for a good long nap. When he awoke, the first stars were beginning to twinkle down at him from the sky, and Black Shadows lay over the Green Meadows. He found that he could see quite as well as in the light of day, and, because he was already hungry again, he started out to look for something to eat. Something inside warned him that he must watch out for danger now just as sharply as before, though the Black Shadows seemed to promise safety. Just what he was to watch out for he didn’t know, still every few steps he stopped to look and listen. He found that this was visiting time among the meadow-mice, and he made a great many friends. There was a great deal of scurrying back and forth along private little paths, and a great deal of squeaking. At least, that is what Tommy would have called it had he still been a boy, but as it was, he understood it perfectly, for it was meadow-mouse language. Suddenly not a sound was to be heard, not a single squeak or the sound of scurrying feet. Tommy sat perfectly still and held his breath. He didn’t know why, but something inside told him to, and he did. Then something passed over him. It was like a Black Shadow, and it was just as silent as a Black Shadow. But Tommy knew that it wasn’t a Black Shadow, for out of it two great, round, fierce, yellow eyes glared down and struck such terror to his heart that it almost stopped beating. But they didn’t see him, and he gave a tiny sigh of relief as he watched the grim living shadow sail on. While he watched, there was a frightened little squeak, two legs with great curved claws dropped down from the shadow, plunged into the grass, and when they came up again they held a little limp form. A little mouse had moved when he shouldn’t have, and Hooty the Owl had caught a dinner.