floating mud. The dark line of the other shore seemed far, far
away, with perhaps the fox waiting for her there.

But she laid her ears flat to be out of the gale, and bravely put forth
all her strength with wind and tide against her. After a long, weary
swim in the cold water, she had nearly reached the farther reeds
when a great mass of floating snow barred her road; then the wind
on the bank made strange, fox-like sounds that robbed her of all
force, and she was drifted far backward before she could get free
from the floating bar.

Again the struck Out, but slowly--oh so slowly now. And when at
last she reached the lee of the tall reeds, her limbs were numbed,
her strength spent, her brave little heart was sinking, and she cared
no more whether the fox were there or not. Through the reeds she
did indeed pass, but once in the weeds her course wavered and
slowed, her feeble strokes no longer sent her landward, the ice
forming around her stopped her altogether. In a little while
the cold, weak limbs ceased to move, the furry nose-tip of the little
mother Cottontail wobbled no more, and the soft brown eyes were
closed in death.

But there was no fox waiting to tear her with ravenous jaws. Rag
had escaped the first onset of the foe, and as soon as he regained
his wits he came running back to change-off and so help his
mother. He met the old fox going round the pond to meet Molly
and led him far and away, then dismissed him with a barbed-wire
gash on his head, and came to the bank and sought about and
trailed and thumped, but all his searching was in vain; he could not
find his little mother. He never saw her again, and he never knew