When he reached the ground, there was Chatterer scurrying around and
poking under the fallen leaves, but he hadn't found a single nut. Happy
Jack couldn't stop to quarrel any more, because you see he was afraid
that Chatterer would find the biggest and fattest nuts, so he began to
scurry around and hunt too. It was queer, very queer, how those nuts
could have hidden so! They hunted and hunted, but no nuts were to be
found. Then they stopped and stared up at the top of the tall hickory
tree. Not a nut could they see. Then they stared at each other, and
gradually a foolish, a very foolish look crept over each face.

"Where--where do you suppose they have gone?" asked Happy Jack in a
queer-sounding voice.

Just then they heard some one laughing fit to kill himself. It was Peter
Rabbit.

"Did you take our hickory nuts?" they both shouted angrily.

"No," replied Peter, "no, I didn't take them, though they were not
yours, anyway!" And then he went off into another fit of laughter, for
Peter had seen Striped Chipmunk very hard at work taking away those very
nuts while his two big cousins had been quarreling in the tree-top.




CHAPTER V

HAPPY JACK SUSPECTS STRIPED CHIPMUNK