covered with straw during the winter. It was not far from the burrow,
and, though it was not really a store, the rabbits always called it
that. So that was where Susie Littletail went. She scraped the snow off
the straw with her hind feet and kicked the straw away so she could get
at the cabbage. Then she began to gnaw off the sweetest leaves she could
find for her little sick brother. She had broken off quite a number and
was thinking how nice they would be for him, when she suddenly smelled
something strange.

It was not cabbage nor turnips nor carrots that she smelled. Nor was it
sweet clover, nor any smell like that. It was the smell of danger, and
Susie, like all her family, could smell danger quite a distance. This
time she knew it was a man with a dog and a gun who was coming toward
her. For Uncle Wiggily Longears had told her how to know when such a
thing happened.

"Oh, it's some of those horrid hunters; I know it is!" exclaimed Susie.
"I must run home, though I haven't half enough cabbage."

She took the leaves she had gnawed off in her mouth and bounded off
toward the underground house. All at once a dog sprang out of the bushes
at her and the man with the gun shot at her, but he did not hit her. She
was so frightened, however, that she dropped the cabbage leaves and ran
for her life.

Oh, how Susie Littletail did run! She never ran so fast before in all
her life, and, just as the dog was going to grab her, she saw the back
door of her house, and into it she popped like a cork going into a
bottle.