born. And Peter couldn't make up his mind to go back there and leave
her, because--why, because he loved her so much that he felt that he
could never, never be happy without her. Then, when Old Jed Thumper was
hunting Peter so hard that he hardly had a chance to eat or sleep, had
come Old Man Coyote the Wolf and given Old Jed Thumper such a fright
that for a week he didn't dare poke so much as his nose out of his bull-
briar castle.

Now, although Old Man Coyote didn't know it, his terrible voice had
frightened little Miss Fuzzytail almost as much as it had Old Jed
Thumper. You see, she never had heard it before, She didn't even know
what it was, and all that night she had crouched in her most secret
hiding-place, shivering and shaking with fright. The next morning Peter
had found her there. She hadn't slept a wink, and she was still too
frightened to even go look for her breakfast.

"Oh, Peter Rabbit, did you hear that terrible noise last night?" she
cried.

"What noise?" asked Peter, just as if he didn't know anything about it.

"Why, that terrible voice!" cried little Miss Fuzzytail, and shivered at
the thought of it.

"What was it like?" asked Peter.

"Oh, I can't tell you," said little Miss Fuzzy tall, "It wasn't like
anything I ever had heard before. It was something like the voice of
Hooty the Owl and the voice of Dippy the Loon and the voice of a little
yelping dog all in one, and it was just terrible!"