e was one of Grandfather Fox's grandchildren standing right
in front of me, so near that I could have touched him with my paw! Now
you'd better believe I was frightened, and I had good reason to be,
for if he made one snap I was a gone rabbit, as I couldn't make the
first jump without his nabbing me!

"He licked his chops, thinking, I suppose, that a bit of fresh rabbit
would taste mighty good, and I couldn't help saying to myself that I
was the freshest thing in the big woods, else I'd have had better
sense than to have run straight into that impudent young fox as I had.
He was a member of the family with which I wasn't very well
acquainted, but when I understood by the swinging of his tail that he
was getting ready to pounce on me I said, as if he were the best
friend I ever had in the world:

"'Good afternoon, Mr. Fox. Your grandfather was an old acquaintance of
mine, and I'm mighty glad to meet a grandson of his who looks so much
like him.'

"Mr. Fox grinned, but he never said a word, and I made up my mind
right off quick that there wouldn't be any need for me to tell Mr.
Crow to take my name off the club list, for in two or three minutes
more there wouldn't be enough left of me to talk about."

At this point Mr. Rabbit ceased speaking abruptly, moving his ears to
and fro nervously as if he had heard something disagreeable, and
common courtesy demanded that the silence should not be broken save by
himself.

CHAPTER XIV

MR. CROW'S PLOT

While one might have counted twenty Mr. Rabbit remained in a listening
attitude, and then, shaking his ears with a gesture which was very
like that of mental relief, said with a smile as he stroked his
whiskers swaggeringly:

"Do you know, just for a minute I thought the smell of young Mr. Fox
was in the air. When I got rid of that fellow's grandfather I said to
Mrs. Bunny that a full half of all our troubles had disappeared out of
the big woods, with the evidence of the good fortune nailed up on Mr.
Man's barn; but I had entirely forgotten that the old rascal left
behind him a regular gang of children and grandchildren, and I truly
believe they are the worst to be found anywhere in this world, to say
nothing of their being able to run twice as fast as their grandfather
ever could even in his best days.

"I wonder why it is that the Fox family have such a hankering for
rabbit pie, stew, or even plain rabbit? Of course, they don't turn up
their noses at a good plu