less. "Now," thinks Bunny, "I'll frighten
him, and find out what he is." Leaping high he strikes the ground
sharply two or three times with his padded hind foot; then jumps up
quickly again to see the effect of his scare. Once he succeeded very
well, when he crept up close behind me, so close that he didn't have
to spring up to see the effect. I fancy him chuckling to himself as he
scurried off after my sudden start.

That was the first time that I ever heard Bunny's challenge. It
impressed me at the time as one of his most curious pranks; the sound
was so big and heavy for such a little fellow. Since then I have heard
it frequently; and now sometimes when I stand at night in the forest
and hear a sudden heavy thump in the underbrush, as if a big moose
were striking the ground and shaking his antlers at me, it doesn't
startle me in the least. It is only Br'er Rabbit trying to frighten
me.

The next night Bunny played us another trick. Before Simmo went to
sleep he always took off his blue overalls and put them under his head
for a pillow. That was only one of Simmo's queer ways. While he was
asleep the rabbits came into his little _commoosie_, dragged the
overalls out from under his head, and nibbled them full of holes. Not
content with this, they played with them all night; pulled them around
the clearing, as threads here and there plainly showed; then dragged
them away into the underbrush and left them.

Simmo's wrath when he at last found the precious garments was comical
to behold; when he wore them with their new polka-dot pattern, it was
still more comical. Why the rabbits did it I could never quite make
out. The overalls were very dirty, very much stained with everything
from a clean trout to tobacco crumbs; and, as there was nothing about
them for a rabbit to eat, we concluded that it was just one of Br'er
Rabbit's pranks. That night Simmo, to avenge his overalls, set a
deadfall supported by a piece of cord, which he had soaked in molasses
and salt. Which meant that Bunny would nibble the cord for the salt
that was in it, and bring the log down hard on his own back. So I had
to spring it, while Simmo slept, to save the little fellow's life and
learn more about him.

Up on the ridge above our tent was a third tiny clearing, where some
trappers had once made their winter camp. It was there that I watched
the rabbits one moonlight night from my seat on an old log, just
within the shadow at the edge of the open