The only thing he discovered was the scent of Bowser the Hound , and he knew that Bowser had not taken that fat hen , because , as you remember , Bowser had kept right on chasing him . Reddy began to feel afraid of that old stump . People usually are afraid of mysterious things , and it certainly was very mysterious that a fat hen with a broken neck should disappear without leaving any trace at all . Reddy sat down at a little distance and did a lot of hard thinking . He looked every which way even up in the tree tops , but all his looking was in vain . It was so mysterious that if he had n't known positively that he was awake he would have thought it was all a dream . But Reddy is something of a philosopher . That fat hen was gone , and there was no use in wasting time puzzling over it . There were other fat hens where that one came from , and he would just have to catch another . So Reddy trotted through the swamp till he came to the edge of it . There his keen nose found the scent of the farmer . It did n't take him two minutes to discover that the farmer had followed Bowser the Hound to the edge of the swamp and then gone back . Eagerly Reddy looked over to the farmyard for those fat hens . They , too , had disappeared . Not one was to be seen . But there was no mystery about the disappearance of these other fat hens . He heard the muffled crow of the big rooster . It came from the henhouse . All those fat hens had been shut up . It was perfectly plain to Reddy that the farmer suspected Reddy might return , and he did n't intend to lose another fat hen .
With a little yelp of disappointment , XXXXX turned his back on the farm and trotted off into the woods .
Bowser Reddy farmyard henhouse minutes right scent something stump thinking