After nosing about the swamp and the woods all the afternoon Fatty
decided that there was no use in trying to get a meal there. The ground
was covered with snow. And except for rabbit tracks--and a few
squirrels'--he could find nothing that even suggested food. And looking
at those tracks only made him hungrier than ever.

For a few minutes Fatty thought deeply. And then he turned about and
went straight toward Farmer Green's place. He waited behind the fence
just beyond Farmer Green's house; and when it began to grow dark he
crept across the barnyard.

As Fatty passed a small, low building he noticed a delicious smell. And
he stopped right there. He had gone far enough. The door was open a
little way. And after one quick look all around--to make sure there was
nobody to see him--Fatty slipped inside.

It was almost dark inside Farmer Green's smokehouse--for that was what
the small, low building was called. It was almost dark; but Fatty could
see just as well as you and I can see in the daytime. There was a long
row of hams hung up in a line. Underneath them were white ashes, where
Farmer Green had built wood fires, to smoke the hams. But the fires were
out, now; and Fatty was in no danger of being burned.

The hams were what Fatty Coon had smelled. And the hams were what Fatty
intended to eat. He decided that he would eat them all--though of course
he could never have done that--at least, not in one night; nor in a
week, either. But when it came to eating, Fatty's courage never failed
him. He would have tried to eat an elephant, if he had had the chance.

Fatty did not stop to look long at that row of hams. He climbed a post