Then Mr. Fox looked all about him very sharply, this way and that, for his own coat was black as coal, and could be seen quite well against the brown grass when he moved. But when he lay quite still, you couldn't tell him from a stone. He was not afraid that Little Miss Ptarmigan would see him. He knew where she was, and could hide behind rocks until he came close to her.
After Mr. Fox had looked all about him very sharply, this way and that, he began to creep around this rock and that one, all the time drawing closer to innocent, foolish Little Miss Ptarmigan, whose white dress showed plain as day against the brown earth. And presently he was right behind a big rock she must pass in just another minute. And then he was so close that it seemed almost as if she could hear him breathe.
But she didn't. She just walked along, thinking about the fine things Madam White Owl had said to her, till zing! something sprang at her. She gave a frightened scream and flew to one side, but she was too late. Something sharp and cruel closed down on the toe of her pink shoes. It was the teeth of Mr. Black Fox's sausage grinder. But he closed them down a little too hard, for it cut the toe right off the pink shoe, and the tips of Little Miss Ptarmigan's pink toes besides, and away she flew, screaming with pain, toward a white snow bank in the valley. There each little hurt toe left a red spot on the white snow, and my, how they did ache!
One day quite a while later, when Little White Fox was over among the brown rocks at the foot of Saw Tooth Mountain, he heard a scratch, scratch! among the dry grasses behind him. He turned around, and there stood a little stranger dressed all in brown. She looked wonderfully like Miss Ptarmigan. She was just about the same size, and her shoes and stockings were just the same shade of pink.
"Hello, Little White Fox!" she cried. "I thought you said you could find me when summer came and the ground was all brown. You have been looking for me a whole week, and I have been out here all the time. You saw me yesterday, but you didn't know me, because I had put on my summer clothes. Oh, Little White Fox, you are a very wise fellow! A very wise fellow, indeed!"
It was Miss Ptarmigan. She had changed her white gown for a brown one!