So they kept going, hoppity, hoppity, hop. And as they went Doctor Rabbit’s courage rose little by little. After all, thought he, perhaps Ki-yi Coyote would not see them.
Even so, he kept a sharp eye out for anything that might be moving in the grass. And he told Jack Rabbit to do the same.
“Indeed I will, sir,” Jack Rabbit answered. “I always do look out. I should say I do! And if Ki-yi Coyote starts up I’ll see him quick as a flash!”
Then they hurried a bit faster because Doctor Rabbit said he wanted to get to the first tree and examine the holes for himself.
THE HOLES UNDER THE TREES
Doctor Rabbit and Mr. Jack Rabbit moved across the Wide Prairie and looked about them in every direction. There was a great deal of bunch grass on the Wide Prairie, and this made them very nervous. They knew how easy it would be for Ki-yi Coyote to hide behind one of those bunches of grass until an innocent rabbit came very near.
Doctor Rabbit stopped and said, “I really believe we should keep just as far as possible from every bunch of grass.” Then he jumped backward, because he saw something moving in the grass. But it proved to be nothing but a sunflower; so they walked on.
By and by they came to the first tree, and how glad they were! Doctor Rabbit went into the hole there to look about. After a little time he came out and said a gray squirrel had been there, but it had been a good while before. He said it looked to him like an old house that people had lived in once, but not for a long time. You know how the grass grows up tall in the front yard, and the windows get broken, and the doors creak when you open them, and there is a damp, musty smell in a house. Well, Doctor Rabbit said it was that way in the hole under the tree. Some animal, a gray squirrel, maybe, had lived there, and perhaps some other small animal before the gray squirrel; but they were gone now.