stretch of waste land, covered by a tangle of raspberry bushes.

"I wonder if they'll follow me over the wall!" Snowball muttered.

He didn't jump the wall. It was too high for that. But he scrambled over it without any trouble, for his little feet found plenty of footholds amid the jutting rocks.

Snowball had already landed on the further side of the wall when thud! thud! thud! other members of the flock came thumping down upon the ledge beside him. He moved aside a little way, because he didn't want to be stepped on.

Then, all at once, a squeaky, frightened voice cried, "What's the matter? Is there an earthquake?"

Though Snowball looked all about he couldn't see the speaker anywhere.

Meanwhile there sounded a patter, patter! patter! which came from hurrying feet in the pasture. And there sounded a click! click! click! which came from scrambling feet climbing over the wall. And there sounded further thuds which came from those same feet as they thundered down upon the ledge.

At last the slowest sheep had joined Snowball. He still searched for the squeaky voice.

"This is queer!" Snowball murmured. "I don't see where that odd voice came from!"

He soon found out. For as he picked his way to the foot of the ledge, to nibble at the grass that grew down below, he saw peering out of a hole in the ground the face of a fat old gentleman whom he had sometimes met in the pasture.

This person's name was Uncle Jerry Chuck. And he looked terribly scared. His teeth were chattering. His nose was twitching.

Somehow Uncle Jerry's fright seized Snowball, too. With a bleat of terror he turned and fled up the ledge, scurried over the wall, and ran back where he had just come from.

Like one sheep the whole flock turned tail and followed Snowball with frantic baas.