He knew that his scent lay best near the ground, and was strongest when he was warm.  So if he could get off the ground, and be left in peace for half an hour to cool off, and for the trail to stale, he knew he would be safe.  When, therefore, he tired of the chase, he made for the Creekside brier-patch, where he ’wound’—­that is, zigzagged—­till he left a course so crooked that the dog was sure to be greatly delayed in working it out.  He then went straight to D in the woods, passing one hop to windward of the high log E. Stopping at D, he followed his back trail to F, here he leaped aside and ran toward G. Then, returning on his trail to J, he waited till the hound passed on his trail at I. Rag then got back on his old

[Illustration]

trail at H, and followed it to E, where, with a scent-baulk or great leap aside, he reached the high log, and running to its higher end, he sat like a bump.

Ranger lost much time in the bramble maize, and the scent was very poor when he got it straightened out and came to D. Here he began to circle to pick it up, and after losing much time, struck the trail which ended suddenly at G. Again he was at fault, and had to circle to find the trail.  Wider 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.