Page:Wild folk - Samuel Scoville.djvu/75

Rh Everywhere, across the fields and through the swamps and in and out of the woods, was another track, made up of four holes in the snow, two far-apart and two near-together. Overhead at night in the cold sky, below those star-jewels, Mintaka, Alnilam, and Alnita, which gleam in the belt of Orion, the same track appears where four stars form the constellation of Lepus the Hare. Down on Connecticut earth, however, the mark was that of the cottontail rabbit.

Among the many snow-stories which showed that morning was one tragedy written red. It began with the trail of one of the cottontails. At first, the near-together holes were in front of the others. That marked where Bunny had been hopping leisurely along, his short close-set forepaws making the near-together holes and his long far-apart hind paws the others. At times, where the trail led in the lee of thick bushes, a fifth mark would appear. This was the print of the powder-puff that the rabbit wears for a tail, and showed where he had sat down to rest or meditate in the snow. Suddenly, the wide-apart marks appeared far in front of the other two. For some reason the rabbit had speeded up his pace, and with every spring his long hind legs had thrust themselves beyond and outside of the short forepaws. A little farther along, the tracks of the two forepaws showed close to each other, in a vertical instead of a horizontal line. This meant to him who could read the writing that the rabbit was running at a desperate speed. At the end of every bound he had twisted