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As Doctor Rabbit watched, Brushtail ran out of sight in the woods, and the barking of the hounds and the voices of Farmer Roe and his boy sounded farther and farther away. Doctor Rabbit sat and waited, for he thought they might turn Brushtail back and run him past the fallen tree. But after a while they seemed farther away than ever, and he could just barely hear Yappy barking on the trail.
"Dey take mine," she said, "and now dey keel heem, an' white man, he yappy yappy yappy; not do not do any t'ing! He send for Mount' P'lice, mabee no do anyt'ing unless Indian man . . . he keel." The little hiss of breath again and a cunning mad look in the eyes. "Go 'way Calamity! Go home to our ranch house!" By and by, came Wayland.
Doctor Rabbit just sat still and waited. He knew that Brushtail the Fox was one of the slyest creatures in the woods, and he was pretty sure now that he would get away for this time at least. "I should not be surprised if he came sneaking back right around here. And still," Doctor Rabbit said hopefully, "Yappy may get him. I'll just wait for a time and see what does happen."
"Do you suppose he hides in these woods in the daytime?" asked Farmer Roe's boy. "I shouldn't be surprised," replied Farmer Roe. "In fact, I'm pretty sure he hides close by. There is one thing that puzzles me, however, and that is that although Yappy trailed that fox directly from the chicken yard, he lost the trail right in the woods and could not pick it up again.
All of a sudden he saw Farmer Roe and his boy running toward Yappy, and with them was another big dog which joined in the chase after Brushtail. "It's a fox! a fox! It's that old fox!" shouted Farmer Roe's boy. "Catch him, Yappy! Catch him! catch him!" The second big hound turned Brushtail back so that he almost ran into Farmer Roe before he saw him.
"His eyes were like beads, His tail like a mop, And it waggled as if It never would stop. "His hair was like silk Of the glossiest sheen, He always ate milk, And once the cold-cream "For Yappy he died Just two months ago, And we oughtn't to sing At a funeral, you know." The "Poem" met with immense applause; all the children laughed, and shouted, and clapped, till the loft rang again.
If I'd been the sort of chap you're thinking I should have told a long George Washington yarn, pretending to be an innocent hero. Well, I didn't. I'm not an innocent hero. I'm a man who's knocked about for fifteen years. You've got the truth. Women don't like the truth. They want a yarn. A yappy, long, sugar-coated yarn, and lots of protestations.
After a time he put the last piece of cheese under an old log. Then he straightened up and said, "There, now! That ought to fix him, or both of them, if there are two instead of one. I'm glad Yappy has been trained not to eat anything he finds out in the woods," he added, "for this bait would be the end of him, too! And that would never do."
"Possibly," suggested Chatty Red Squirrel, "Brushtail will not have a fallen tree near his new den, nor any other way of making Yappy lose the trail. And possibly Yappy will smell along old Brushtail's trail and find him right in his den." "Don't you ever think Brushtail will be foolish enough to walk straight along the ground to his den," said Doctor Rabbit.
Yappy bayed loudly, and away he went through the woods after Brushtail. You see now what Brushtail was doing he was leading Yappy away from that den of little foxes! When Mrs. Brushtail and the four little Brushies ran into the hole in the thicket and Father Brushtail ran away through the woods with Yappy in hot pursuit, Doctor Rabbit decided he had better be going.
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