It was a cool autumn morning and I had just finished my morning scratch when I heard a commotion coming from the duck pen.

I grabbed my spyglass and went to investigate. What I saw was two ducks quacking and beating each other with their wings.

"Stop it you two," I ordered.

"What's going on?" asked Fluffy.

"He ate all the scratch before the rest of us could eat any," said Debbie.

"I did not," defended Babs, "the scratch was all gone when I came here, and then Debbie started quacking and hitting me with her wings."

I pulled out my notebook and wrote down what Babs had said. Then I got my spyglass and looked around the feed trough for clues. Aha! There among the duck prints were some chicken tracks. Looking closer I could see some marks around the tracks that looked as though they had been made by a feather-legged chicken.

Now that I knew the culprit was a feather-legged chicken, I could write my list of suspects. My suspects were Captain, a white Silkie, Birdy, a black Cochin, Snowball, a Sultan, and Fluffy, a black Silkie.

I went over to Fluffy and asked, "Are you the one who ate the duck's feed?"

"No, the farmer gives us plenty of scratch every morning, so why would I steal some from the ducks?"

"Just asking," I answered and walked over to Snowball and asked, "Did you steal the duck's feed?"

"No, I didn't even wake up until I heard the ducks quacking," she replied.

"Do you know who stole the duck's feed?" I questioned Captain.

"No, I don't," he replied, "and it wasn't me either."

Birdy was the last one on my list to question, but I couldn't find him so I decided to wait until morning to question him.

The next morning, I awoke to chaos coming from the duck pen. Arriving on the scene, I heard the ducks quacking angrily around their feed trough.

Just then I spied a small white object on the ground nearby. Looking closer, I saw it was a white Silkie feather. "So Captain is the thief after all!" I announced.

The ducks grumbled angrily and threatened to call the police. I calmed them down and went to talk with Captain.

"I'm sorry," he apologized, "but the other Silkies didn't let me eat so I just ate the duck's feed."

After that I made the other Silkies promise to always let Captain eat or I would tell the farmer to sell them.