Fuzzy Wuzz gave one quick glance at the squirming, twisting snake, and then darted off toward home, with Bumper close behind her.
STORY IV
SPOTTED TAIL SHOWS ENMITY
You can imagine how grateful Fuzzy Wuzz was to Bumper for saving her from Killer the Snake! Not only that, but she was mightily impressed by his wisdom. Who but a king would have thought of gnawing off the butt of the tree so it would fall on Killer!
She was so grateful that she told the story again and again to her people, and they seemed as greatly impressed as Fuzzy Wuzz at Bumper’s shrewdness. But Spotted Tail was not pleased. Perhaps he was still suspicious, and thought it was more luck than knowledge that had saved Bumper’s reputation. He still believed that Bumper had never seen a hornet’s nest until that day he innocently mistook Mr. Yellow Jacket’s home for a big, harmless ball.
This fact, coupled with several other little things that he had observed, Bumper’s avoidance of certain plants, for instance, that he seemed to think might be poisonous until the others ate them, convinced him that Bumper was not fit to be the leader of his people.
“If Old Blind Rabbit could see with his eyes,” he reasoned, “he’d know, too. But some day I’ll catch him, and show him up. He’s no king, for a king should know everything.”
By letting such things dwell upon his mind, Spotted Tail worked himself up into a pitch of excitement that was not pleasant. He fancied himself wronged by Bumper. If the white rabbit hadn’t come into the woods, Spotted Tail would have been chosen the natural leader.
Jealousy and spite are enough to sour any disposition, and Spotted Tail was in a fair way of showing that he was not really fitted to be a leader. A good leader never grows sullen and discontented because somebody else happens to get more favors than he. Fuzzy Wuzz’s attachment to Bumper further increased Spotted Tail’s displeasure. In time he came almost to hating Bumper, and tried to think of ways and means to disgrace him before the others.
Bumper was only partly conscious of this feeling toward him. He knew that Spotted Tail was suspicious of his knowledge of wood lore, and he was on his guard all the time to prevent any mistake that would give him away. But he never dreamed that the big rabbit was beginning to dislike him. He seldom hunted with him, and had few words with him, but there had been no open enmity between them.
Then one day in the woods Bumper found himself unexpectedly separated from the others, with only Spotted Tail in view. Fuzzy Wuzz and the rest had crossed the brook on a natural rustic bridge of logs, and were feeding on the opposite side when Bumper discovered them.