“’They was still coming for him acrost the flat, with their tongues out; so he soopled himself up a bit with a few jumps and made for that there big down spruce.  He lands on the trunk and runs along it to where the top begins.  He has it all worked out.  He’s saying:  “If this here is a joke, all right; but if it ain’t a joke I better have some place back of me for a kind of refuge.”

“’So up come these strange rabbits and started to jump for him on the trunk of the spruce; but it’s pretty high and they can’t quite make it.  And in a minute they sort of suspicion something on their part, because Kate has rared his back and is giving ’em a line of abuse they never heard from any rabbit yet.  Awful wicked it was, and they sure got puzzled.  I could hear one of ’em saying:  “Aw, come on!  That ain’t no regular rabbit; he don’t look like a rabbit, and he don’t talk like a rabbit, and he don’t act like a rabbit!” Then another would say:  “What of it?  What do we care if he’s a regular rabbit or not?  Let’s get him, anyway, and take him apart!”

“’So they all begin to jump again and can’t quite make it till their leader says he’ll show ’em a real jump.  He backs off a little to get a run and lands right on the log.  Then he wished he hadn’t.  Old Kate worked so quick I couldn’t hardly follow it.  In about three seconds this leader lands on his back down in the bunch, squealing like one of these Italian sopranos when the flute follows her up.  He crawls off on his stomach, still howling, and I see he’s had a couple of wipes over the eye, and one of his ears is shredded.

“’A couple of the others come over to ask him how it happened, and what he quit for, and did his foot slip; and he says:  “Mark my words, gentlemen; we got our work cut out for us here.  That animal is acting less and less like a rabbit every minute.  He’s more turbulent and he’s got spurs on.”  He goes on talking this way while the others bark at Kate, and Kate dares any one of ’em to come on up there and have it out, man to man.  Finally another lands on the tree trunk and gets what the first one got.  I could see it this time.  Kate done some dandy shortarm work in the clinches and hurled him off on his back like the other one; then he stands there sharpening his claws on the bark and grinning in a masterful way.  He was saying:  “You will, will you?”

“’Then one of these beetles must of said, “Come on, boys—­all together now!” for four of ’em landed up on the trunk all to once.  And Kate wasn’t there.  He’d had the top of this fallen tree at his back, and he kites up a limb about ten feet above their heads and stretches out for a rest, cool as anything, licking his paws and purring like he enjoyed the beautiful summer day, and wasn’t everything calm and lovely?  It was awful insulting the way he looked down on ’em, with his eyes half shut.  And you never seen beetles so astonished in your life.  They just couldn’t believe their eyes, seeing a rabbit act that way!  The leader limps over and says:  “There!  What did I tell you, smarties?  I guess next time you’ll take my word for it.  I guess you can see plain enough now he ain’t no rabbit, the way he skinned up that tree.”