It was cold , very cold , but not nearly as cold as outside that little house . So Bowser curled up in the hay and shivered and shook and slept a little and wished with all his might that he never had found the tracks of Old Man Coyote . CHAPTER VI THE SURPRISE OF BLACKY THE CROW The harder it is to follow a trail The greater the reason you should not fail . Bowser the Hound . At all seasons of the year Blacky the Crow is something of a traveler . But in winter he is much more of a traveler than in summer . You see , in winter it is not nearly so easy to pick up a living . Food is quite as scarce for Blacky the Crow in winter as for any of the other little people who neither sleep the winter away nor go south . All of the feathered folks have to work and work hard to find food enough to keep them warm . You know it is food that makes heat in the body . So in the winter Blacky is in the habit of flying long distances in search of food . He often goes some miles from the thick hemlock-tree in the Green Forest where he spends his nights . You may see him starting out early in the morning and returning late in the afternoon . Now Blacky knew all about that river into which Bowser the Hound had fallen . There was a certain place on that river where Jack Frost never did succeed in making ice . Sometimes things good to eat would be washed up along the edge of this open place . Blacky visited it regularly . He was on the way there now , flying low over the tree-tops . Presently he came to a little opening among the trees . In the middle of it was a little house , a rough little house .
XXXXX knew all about it .
Blacky Bowser Forest Frost VI afternoon hemlock-tree morning nights tree-tops