"I'll tell you what we don't do," Bean said. "We don't let him go!"

"We'll never let him go!" Bunce declared.

"Never never never!" cried Boggis.

"Did you hear that, Mr. Fox!" yelled Bean, bending low and shouting down the hole. "It's not over yet, Mr. Fox! We're not going home till we've strung you up dead as a dingbat!" Whereupon the three men all shook hands with one another and swore a solemn oath that they would not go back to their farms until the fox was caught.

"What's the next move?" asked Bunce, the potbellied dwarf.

"We're sending you down the hole to fetch him up,"said Bean. "Down you go,you miserable midget!" "Not me!" screamed Bunce, running away. Bean made a sickly smile. When he smiled you saw his scarlet gums. You saw more gums than teeth. "Then there's only one thing to do," he said. "We starve him out. We camp here day and night watching the hole. He'll come out in the end. He'll have to."

So Boggis and Bunce and Bean sent messages down to their farms asking for tents, sleeping-bags and supper.

8

The Foxes Begin to Starve

That evening three tents were put up in the crater on the hill—one for Boggis, one for Bunce and one for Bean. The tents surrounded Mr. Fox's hole. And the three farmers sat outside their tents eating their supper. Boggis had three boiled chickens smothered in dumplings, Bunce had six doughnuts filled with disgusting goose-liver paste, and Bean had two gallons of cider. All three of them kept their guns beside them.