“Why, that’s just the way I felt about it!” Nibble exclaimed. “But I never dreamed you would. I thought you hated him.”
“Hate him!” said both dogs at once. “Why, he was the smartest Beast we ever chased. We hadn’t any reason to hate him.”
That certainly made Nibble open his eyes pretty wide. “Then why did you try to kill him?” he demanded. “Was it because you’re hungry?” He was glad to know that the Pickery Things were close behind him when he asked that.
Trailer laughed. “I’m always hungry.” But his tail went up when he said it, so Nibble didn’t run. “But that isn’t why I hunt. You have to know a beast to hate him. I’ve killed plenty of beasts I never saw before I found their trail. Lots that I don’t eat, either.”
“I couldn’t do that!” Nibble gasped and Doctor Muskrat nodded.
“Of course not,” said Trailer, quite proudly, too. “But that’s what I was made for. My mother taught me to use my nose before my eyes were open and to sing the trailing song as soon as I could talk above a whimper.”
“Sing it,” begged the woodsfolk. “Please.”
Trailer raised his head and bayed with an open throat:
“Drop your nose on the odorous trail,
For the warmest footprint soon grows stale.
Tow-row-row!
Leap the fences, plough through the mire,
At a steady gallop that’s slow to tire,
Follow the game of the hounds’ desire.
Raise your eyes—There he flies!
Hail!
Mark the flick of his fleeting tail!
Tow-row-row!”
“You see,” he explained, “one dog doesn’t do all the singing. He sings one line and someone else answers with the next one, round and round again.”