and place and aught else in it.

Across the glade came slowly and lightly over the snow a great red
hare, looking against the white background bigger than any I had
ever set eyes on before. It paid no heed at all to me, even when I
raised my bow to set an arrow on the string with fingers which
trembled with eagerness and haste. Now and again it stopped and
seemed to listen for somewhat, and then loped on again and stopped,
seeming hardly to know which way it wished to go. Now it came
toward me, and then across, and yet again went from me, and all as
if I were not there.

It was thirty paces from me when I shot, and I was a fair marksman,
for a boy, at fifty paces. However, the arrow skimmed just over its
back, and it crouched for a second as it heard the whistle of the
feathers, and then leapt aside and on again in the same way. But
now it crossed the glade and passed behind some trees before I was
ready with a second arrow, and I ran forward to recover the first,
which was in the snow where it struck, hoping thence to see the
hare again.

When I turned with the arrow in my hand I saw what made the hare
pay no heed to me. There was a more terrible enemy than even man on
its track. Sniffing at my footprints where they had just crossed
those of the hare was a stoat, long and lithe and cruel. I knew it
would not leave its quarry until it had it fast by the throat, and
the hare knew it also by some instinct that is not to be fathomed,
for I suppose that no hare, save by the merest chance, ever escaped
that pursuer. The creature seemed puzzled by my footprint, and sat
up, turning its sharp eyes right and left until it spied me; but