The big brown hare raced so fast that it was soon out of sight; then instead of staying safely away, back it came circling, to stand on its hind legs with its long ears pointed forward to catch the sounds these strange newcomers were making, and its paws folded on its furry chest. The minute it caught sight of the pursuing cubs, it leapt away again with such great bounds that the bears again lost sight of it.
“You’d never catch it that way in a million years,” Mother Brown Bear laughed, her black eyes twinkling as the cubs returned.
“Why not?” Chinook demanded. “Let’s wait until it comes back, and have another try.”
“I don’t mind resting here a while,” said Mother Brown Bear, seating herself with her back to a rock and her legs straight out in front of her, while the cubs sprawled out in the sunshine. Up here so high above their woods, where the wind was cool, the sun felt good on their fur.
“In chasing a hare,” Mother Brown Bear told them, “you never want to follow right along in its tracks, because it can generally outrun you.”
“I thought you said it was a rabbit,” said Snookie.
“They call this one a snowshoe rabbit,” her mother explained, “but it’s really a hare, a snowshoe hare. You see how broad its feet are. In winter when there is snow on the mountainsides, its wide furry feet keep it on the tops of the drifts, where an animal with slender feet sinks in. In creeping up on a hare, you can sometimes pounce the way a bobcat pounces on a mouse, but that is only possible when the wind’s in your face (blowing from the hare to you) and it’s curled up asleep and doesn’t see you. If the wind blows from you to the hare, it gets your scent, and takes warning. Then remember, you can’t make the teeniest, weeniest sound or it catches it with those great, funnel-like ears. But where a thing is hard to catch in a straightaway race for it, that is the time to try strategy, and where one pursuer cannot catch a supper that runs so fast, it is sometimes possible for partners to work it between them. I have seen a family of bobcats bring down a ‘snowshoe rabbit’ by careful teamwork.”
“Tell us about it,” begged the cubs, who did not see the hare looking at them from behind the stump, to which it had circled in its foolish curiosity to find out more about its enemies. It was wriggling its nose this way and that, for the wind was in its face, and for the moment it was safe.
“It was a cold moonlight night,” began Mother Brown Bear, “when Paddy-paws and his mate went ‘rabbit’ hunting and took their five half-grown kittens along. The kittens were handsome, bright-eyed little fellows anxious to learn how to do everything their parents did. Well, first Paddy himself gave chase to a big brown hare, who went hopping away so fast that the heavy cat was all out of breath before he had come anywhere near his quarry. But Mrs. Paddy-paws had stationed the kittens around every here and there through the woods, and just as the old cat had to give it up for the time, she was right there ready to take his place. They made a regular relay race of it. When Mrs. Paddy-paws had chased the hare around in a circle and got so winded that she had to stop, the nearest kitten took up the race, and by that time Paddy had his breath back and cut straight across the circle to take the kitten’s place. All this time, of course, the hare was getting more and more worn out, but it still kept leaping ahead so fast that it nearly got away after all. Yes, sir, it took every one of those seven cats to catch that hare. They certainly worked hard for the quick lunch that they got out of it, and they had to work harder still before they had caught enough to satisfy those hungry kittens. But teamwork finally did it.”
At that, the hare, whose eyes had been nearly popping out of his head with surprise, leapt away as fast as he could go.