Doctor Rabbit sat on the trunk of the fallen tree and never moved a
muscle as he listened to the animal creeping through the thicket.
Every now and then it would stop, and there was not a sound; then it
would move again, and all the time it kept coming nearer and nearer.
Doctor Rabbit has a way of twitching his nose most of the time, but as
he sat there he did not even move his nose. No, sir! He was as still
as the tree trunk on which he sat. He kept his eyes right on the place
from which the sounds of the creeping animal came.
And then his heart gave a thump and beat very fast--for out of the
thicket came old Brushtail himself! He looked all about carefully, and
then sat down panting, tired out from his long run.
But after he was somewhat rested, Brushtail got up and grinned. He
looked out in the woods in the direction where Yappy and the other
hound were still running and barking.
"Ha! ha! ha!" Brushtail chuckled softly. "They've lost my trail. I
knew they would when I walked down the Murmuring Brook. Well," he
continued, "I'll just look around a bit for something to eat. Perhaps
I can find that big fat rabbit."
It happened that Brushtail started right for the fallen tree where
Doctor Rabbit sat, and Doctor Rabbit was just about to spring off and
run when something else happened. Farmer Roe's big gray goose came
near. She was eating some tender green grass blades and never dreamed
that a fox was near. But Brushtail saw her and started creeping toward
her.
Doctor Rabbit could not bear to see that big gray goose gobbled up, so
he shouted as loud as he could, "Look out, Gray Goose! Brushtail the
Fox is going to get you! He's coming! He's coming!"
Now, as you may know, a tame goose cannot fly very far, but many of
them can fly a short distance, and fly fairly high too. The gray goose
was terribly frightened, and instantly began flapping her great wings.
She flew just high enough in the air so that Brushtail missed him when
he sprang. If the Murmuring Brook had not been near, that gray goose
would surely have been caught, because, as I have said, she cannot fly
very far; but as it was she managed to fly across the brook. Then she
came to the ground again and ran screaming and flapping her wings
toward Farmer Roe's. She got out of the woods in a few moments and
Brushtail the Fox did not catch her.
Now when Doctor Rabbit shouted, Brushtail turned quickly and saw him,
but knowing that he could not catch both of them, he sprang for the
gray goose. But Brushtail did not swim across Murmuring Brook. He knew
it would take him too long, and he saw that he could not catch the
gray goose after all. So he turned from the edge of the brook and
started back after Doctor Rabbit.
My, but Brushtail was angry at Doctor Rabbit!
"It was that big fat rabbit that made me miss my dinner!" snarled
Brushtail.
"I saw him sitting on that fallen tree. It was he who warned that
silly goose!"
And Brushtail ran swiftly to the fallen tree, and darted quickly all
around it. He sprang into the near-by thickets and charged under some
small brush piles. In fact, he raced around and hunted in every spot
where he thought Doctor Rabbit might be hiding, and all the time he
kept up an angry growl.
"I'll get him; I'll get him," Brushtail kept snarling. "I'll get that
big fat rabbit if it takes me a week!"