The little king's soldiers felt very certain that the king in the next country had taken away the rabbits, so they marched over the hill to bring them back, beating their drums with a bum, bum, bum. Their uniforms were as red as a cock's comb, and they were as brave as lions, but they had to come home without the white rabbits. The king of the next country had never so much as seen the tips of their ears.
"King indeed," said the hunters. "The foxes have carried the rabbits away to their dens, and we will go and bring them back or know the reason why," and they hastened to the woods with their guns. Bang, bang—they, too, made a great noise, but it did no good. The king's rabbits were nowhere to be found.
The servants all went to the park. "If the rabbits are anywhere they are here," they said, and they told the park policeman about them.
"White rabbits with pink eyes and pink ears are not allowed in the park," he said indignantly, so the servants had to go home without the rabbits, as all the rest had done.
The king's gardener went to his garden in a hurry. "I'll not have a leaf left," he said to himself. But when he got to the garden every leaf was in place. The pink roses were just opening their buds in the sunshine, and the white pinks were nodding in the breezes, but not a sign of the white rabbits with pink eyes and pink ears did the gardener see.
The gardener's little daughter Peggy went to the rabbit hutch first of all. She knew that the rabbits were not there, of course, but she had to begin her search somewhere. Nobody, not even the little king himself, loved the white rabbits more than Peggy did. She knew their names, and how old they were, and what they liked best to eat. Every morning as soon as she had eaten her own breakfast she came up from the little cottage where she lived with her mother and father, to bring them lettuce and cabbage leaves. It made her very sad to see the empty hutch, and two bright tears shone in her eyes.
Before they had time to roll down her cheeks Peggy saw something that surprised her very much. It was a hole in the corner of the fence that was built around the rabbit hutch. As soon as she saw it she dried her eyes, and ran through the gate into the road behind the barnyard. The rabbits were not there, but in the dust that lay thick and white along the road were ever so many queer little marks that looked like the prints of rabbit feet.
