t the team would a' turned into horse-power anyway."

The Cottontails were now sole owners of the holes, and did not go near
them when they could help it, lest anything like a path should be made
that might betray these last retreats to an enemy. There was also the
hollow hickory, which, though nearly fallen, was still green, and had
the great advantage of being open at both ends. This had long been the
residence of one Lotor, a solitary old coon whose ostensible calling was
frog-hunting, and who, like the monks of old, was supposed to abstain
from all flesh food. But it was shrewdly suspected that he needed but
a chance to indulge in a diet of rabbit. When at last one dark night he
was killed while raiding Olifant's henhouse, Molly, so far from feeling
a pang of regret, took possession of his cosy nest with a sense of
unbounded relief.

IV

Bright August sunlight was flooding the Swamp in the morning. Everything
seemed soaking in the warm radiance. A little brown swamp-sparrow was
teetering on a long rush in the pond. Beneath him there were open spaces
of dirty water that brought down a few scraps of the blue sky, and
worked it and the yellow duck-weed into an exquisite mosaic, with a
little wrong-side picture of the bird in the middle. On the bank behind
was a great vigorous growth of golden green skunk-cabbage, that cast
dense shadow over the brown swamp tussocks.

The eyes of the swamp-sparrow were not trained to take in the color
glories, but he saw what we might have missed; that two of the
numberless leafy brown bumps under the broad cabbage-leaves were
furry living things, with noses that never ceased to move up and down,
whatever else was still.

It was Molly and Rag. They were stretched under the skunk-cabbage, not
because they liked its rank smell, but because the winged ticks could
not stand it at all and so left them in peace.

Rabbits have no set time for lessons, they are always learning; but what
the lesson is depends on the present stress, and that must arrive before
it is known. They went to this place for a quiet rest, but had not been
long there when suddenly a warning note from the ever-watchful bluejay
caused Molly's nose and ears to go up and her tail to tighten to her
back. Away across the Swamp was Olifant's big black and white dog,
coming straight toward them.

"Now," said Molly, "squat while I go and keep that fool out of
mischief." Away she went to meet him and she fearlessly dashed a