“Better come away!” Solomon Owl called to Jimmy Rabbit, turning his head
toward the fence where Jimmy had been lingering near the hot-headed
stranger.

But Jimmy Rabbit didn’t answer him, either. He was no longer there. The
moment he had seen Tommy Fox bounding off across the meadow Jimmy had
started at once for Farmer Green’s vegetable garden.

So Solomon Owl was the last to leave.

“There’s really nothing else I can do,” he remarked to himself. “I don’t
know what Aunt Polly Woodchuck would say if she knew that I didn’t follow
her advice to-night and eat a pullet for my supper.... But I’ve tried my
best.... And that’s all anybody can do.”

Solomon Owl was upset all the rest of that night. And just before daybreak
he visited the farmyard again, to see whether the strange man with the
flaring head still watched the chicken house. And Solomon found that he
had vanished.

So Solomon Owl alighted on the fence. There was nothing there except a
hollowed-out pumpkin, with a few holes cut in it, which someone had left
on one of the fence-posts.

“Good!” said he. “Maybe I can get my pullet after all!” He turned to fly
to the chicken house. But just then the woodshed door opened again. And
Farmer Green stepped outside, with a lantern in his hand. He was going to
the barn to milk the cows. But Solomon Owl did not wait to learn anything
more.