He sniffed carefully about the haystack and, sure enough, there was a nice nest that smelled of Silvertip—it’s almost the same smell as the seeds of the “cranes-bill,” as the Woodsfolk call wild geranium. It was empty, so Nibble cocked an ear at the chicken coop. Sure enough, there was a tiny rustling in the straw. As he sat there listening he heard the scared shout of a pullet, “Squa-awk! Squa-a—” and that was all. Silvertip had throttled her. Bounce! Down he came from the perch and slam! Out he slipped through the little back door his snoopy nose had learned how to open. But Nibble didn’t dare call Watch for fear Silvertip would hear him.
Silvertip trotted past with the poor chicken hanging from his jaws.
CHAPTER VI
A GAME OF TAG IN TOMMY’S BARN
You know about Nibble Rabbit. First he’s scared and then he’s curious. He was scared when he heard Silvertip catch the pullet. And he was still more scared when Silvertip trotted past in the mist, splashing softly in the puddles, with the poor chicken hanging from his jaws. But when Silvertip suddenly stopped and sniffed Nibble’s own footprints by the haystack, he was the scaredest little rabbit in all the fields and woods and the barnyard, too.
Just the same he could see Silvertip say to himself, “It’s too wet to follow that trail. I’ll keep an eye out for bunnies around here as well as birds.”
And Nibble said to his own self, “Bunny, that fox will have to do some looking.” Then Silvertip picked up the chicken and trotted on.
Of course Nibble took a long breath when he had gone. That gave him time to grow curious. “I wonder which fence-corner those greedy little Screech Owls said he hid his food in?” he thought. “Watch would like to know.” So he peeked around the end of the stack and listened. Silvertip was away out of sight in the mist, but his feet went splashing off to the very corner of the Broad Field, where he used to sleep under some elderberry bushes. Yes, and sometimes he’d catch the birds who came there for berries. Oh, that Silvertip was certainly clever.
“Now,” Nibble thought, “it’s safe for me to hunt for the Red Cow.” She wasn’t in the milking barn, but he could hear her baby, not very far away, calling his mother to get up and give him his breakfast. And the more he listened to that naughty little calf the more he wanted to see it again. So he crept down the line of scary, switchy tails, past the very last one. Then he came to a narrow lane, all sprinkled with dried clover-leaves. Pretty soon he had to squeeze under a door into another part of the barn. It was much brighter than the milking barn, because there was a hole in the wall at the far end. There were three box stalls, and he could hear the little calf in the last one.
He hopped up on a bale of straw and ran along the top of the partition until he could look in and see him. There that naughty little beast had got tired of calling his mother and bunting her, so now he was trying to kick her. And Nibble thought he was cunninger than ever.