THE BIG GRAY GOOSE GETS AWAY
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!"