"Well, there I was standing face to face with young Mr. Fox, and he grinning at me in a way that said just as plain as words could have done what a good time he'd have eating me. Goodness, I'm trembling even now to think of what he might have done before I had a chance to wag my ear if he'd known that I was the one who led his grandfather into the trap where Mr. Man could get hold of him so easily! When he didn't even speak after I'd talked to him so sweetly the idea came into my head that perhaps I might jump right over his back and so get out of the hole in that way; but it seemed as if he must have known what was in my mind, for he said with another of his beastly grins:
"'Don't try to do anything like that, Bunny Rabbit, for I'm a good deal more spry with my feet than ever grandfather was, and I'd catch you on the fly.'
"'Perhaps you're making a mistake as to what I was thinking about,' I said innocent-like, as if I didn't have sense enough to go home when it rained. 'I was saying to myself that you had quite the most beautiful tail I ever saw on one of your family.'
"Do you know, that struck him just right, and for the life of him he couldn't help turning his head to look at it, though, between you and me, it wasn't anything extra in the way of a tail; except for the size, Cheeko had a better one—more bushy and with much finer hair. Young Mr. Fox took all I said in sober earnest and began waving that fly-brush of his to and fro so he could see it the more plainly and then was come the time I'd been playing for!
"The very minute he turned his head I gave the jump of my life, and it was as many as ten feet straight in the air, beating the Rabbit record by more than five inches. I sailed right over a big alder bush, and when I came down on my feet, young Mr. Fox had just got it into his head that I'd played him a trick. Now you can set it down as a fact that I didn't linger around there any very great while!
"I was off like a runaway streak of lightning the very instant I had the ground under my paws, and, of course, young Mr. Fox started after me; but I had a good three yards the start of him, and to a rabbit who holds the record for running, as I do, that was a mighty long distance. Then again I knew all the crooks and turns in our part of the big woods, while Grandfather Fox's grandson wasn't very well acquainted in that part of the country.
"Before I'd much more than struck my gait I knew I could give him the slip whenever I wanted to, and it seemed as if it would do the foolish fellow a world of good to teach him a lesson that he wouldn't forget right away, so I set about doing it to the Queen's taste. First I took a turn over by the pond, where the ground was so wet in spots that he'd sink in two or three inches at every leap, while, by skimming along the edge, I was tiring him out, which was what I didn't want to do till he'd got it considerably harder than he had up to that time.
STRAIGHT IN THE AIR
"Then I tore round by the head pine tree, where Senator Bear lives, thinking that perhaps the old fellow himself might like to take a hand in the game, but he wasn't at home. After that I hiked it up Hemlock Hill, where I could run under the fallen timber and through the thorn bushes, while he'd have to show what he was able to do in the way of jumping, or go a long bit around.