but a harebrained youngster whose skin in the form of a whiplash
was now developing higher horse-power in the Olifant working
team.

"Simple justice," said the old man, "for that hide was raised on
stolen feed that the team would a' turned into horse-power
anyway."

The Cottontails were now sole owners of the holes, and did not go
near them when they could help it, lest anything like a path should
be made that might betray these last retreats to an enemy. There
was also the hollow hickory, which, though nearly fallen, was still
green, and had the great advantage of being open at both ends.
This had long been the residence of one Lotor, a solitary old coon
whose ostensible calling was frog-hunting, and who, like the
monks of old, was supposed to abstain from all flesh food. But it
was shrewdly suspected that he needed but a chance to indulge in a
diet of rabbit. When at last one dark night he was killed while
raiding Olifant's henhouse, Molly, so far from feeling a pang of
regret, took possession of his cosy nest with a sense of unbounded
relief.

IV

Bright Augnst sunlight was flooding the Swamp in the morning.
Everything seemed soaking in the warm radiance. A little brown
swamp-sparrow was teetering on a long rush in the pond. Beneath
him there were open spaces of dirty water that brought down a few
scraps of the blue sky, and worked it and the yellow duck-weed
into an exquisite mosaic, with a little wrong-side picture of the