er and wider the circles, until at last, he passed right under
the log Rag was on. But a cold scent, on a cold day, does not go
downward much. Rag never budged nor winked, and the hound passed.

Again the dog came round. This time he crossed the low part of the log,
and stopped to smell it. 'Yes, clearly it was rabbity,' but it was a
stale scent now; still he mounted the log.

It was a trying moment for Rag, as the great hound came sniff-sniffing
along the log. But his nerve did not forsake him; the wind was right; he
had his mind made up to bolt as soon as Ranger came half way up. But he
didn't come. A yellow cur would have seen the rabbit sitting there, but
the hound did not, and the scent seemed stale, so he leaped off the log,
and Rag had won.

VII

Rag had never seen any other rabbit than his mother. Indeed he had
scarcely thought about there being any other. He was more and more away
from her now, and yet he never felt lonely, for rabbits do not hanker
for company. But one day in December, while he was among the red
dogwood brush, cutting a new path to the great Creekside thicket, he saw
all at once against the sky over the Sunning Bank the head and ears of a
strange rabbit. The new-comer had the air of a well-pleased discoverer
and soon came hopping Rag's way along one of _his_ paths into _his_
Swamp. A new feeling rushed over him, that boiling mixture of anger and
hatred called jealousy.

The stranger stopped at one of Rag's rubbing-trees--that is, a tree
against which he used to stand on his heels and rub his chin as far up
as he could reach. He thought he did this simply because he liked it;
but all buck-rabbits do so, and several ends are served. It makes the
tree rabbity, so that other rabbits know that this swamp already belongs
to a rabbit family and is not open for settlement. It also lets the next
one know by the scent if the last caller was an acquaintance, and the
height from the ground of the rubbing-places shows how tall the rabbit
is.

Now to his disgust Rag noticed that the new-comer was a head taller than
himself, and a big, stout buck at that. This was a wholly new experience
and filled Rag with a wholly new feeling. The spirit of murder entered
his heart; he chewed very hard with nothing in his mouth, and hopping
forward onto a smooth piece of hard ground he struck slowly:

'_Thump--thump--thump_,' which is a rabbit telegram for 'Get out of my
swamp, or fight.'

The new-comer m