But by this time Fatty was sure he was right. He was sure he knew more
than his mother.

"Why can't we go right over to Farmer Green's and take some of his
chickens?" he asked. "The monster has probably eaten him by this time,
and all his family, too."

But Mrs. Coon would do no such thing.

"Show me the tracks," she said firmly. And so they went on into the
woods.

"There they are!" Fatty cried, a few minutes later. "See, Mother!
They're even bigger than I said." He heard a funny noise behind him,
then. And when Fatty Coon looked around he saw that his mother was
actually holding her sides, she was laughing so hard.

"Those are Farmer Green's tracks," she said, as soon as she could stop
laughing long enough to speak.

"What--as big as that?" Fatty pointed at the huge prints in the snow.

"Snowshoes!" Mrs. Coon said. "He was wearing snowshoes--great frames
made of thongs and sticks, to keep him from sinking into the snow."

So that was all there was to Fatty's monster. Somehow, he was
disappointed. But he was very glad he had said nothing to Jasper Jay
about his strange animal. For if he had, he knew he would never have
heard the last of it.