doctor rabbit and mr. jack rabbit moved across the wide prairie and looked about them in every direction. there was a great deal of bunch grass on the wide prairie, and this made them very nervous. they knew how easy it would be for ki-yi coyote to hide behind one of those bunches of grass until an innocent rabbit came very near.
doctor rabbit stopped and said, “i really believe we should keep just as far as possible from every bunch of grass.” then he jumped backward, because he saw something moving in the grass. but it proved to be nothing but a sunflower; so they walked on.
by and by they came to the first tree, and how glad they were! doctor rabbit[pg 14] went into the hole there to look about. after a little time he came out and said a gray squirrel had been there, but it had been a good while before. he said it looked to him like an old house that people had lived in once, but not for a long time. you know how the grass grows up tall in the front yard, and the windows get broken, and the doors creak when you open them, and there is a damp, musty smell in a house. well, doctor rabbit said it was that way in the hole under the tree. some animal, a gray squirrel, maybe, had lived there, and perhaps some other small animal before the gray squirrel; but they were gone now.
doctor rabbit said there was one thing that bothered him a little.
“what’s that?” friend jack rabbit wanted to know. “why,” replied wise[pg 15] doctor rabbit, “i was just thinking that possibly ki-yi coyote knows who lived here, and why they are gone. maybe he made a breakfast of them!”
they didn’t say any more about that part of it, and pretty soon they came to the next tree. doctor rabbit went into the hole here, also. he was gone so long that jack rabbit began to be quite troubled; but finally doctor rabbit came out and said a cottontail rabbit had been in there, but it had been a good while ago. he thought it likely that old ki-yi coyote had gobbled up the cottontail who had lived there.
“however,” doctor rabbit said, “possibly he got away.” then he exclaimed, “i surely hope he got away.”
doctor rabbit looked into the holes under the other two trees, and said some small animals had once lived in them.
[pg 16]all this naturally made doctor rabbit more and more nervous. it looked as if no animal was safe out so far on the wide prairie but fleet jack rabbit, and even he had to watch out mighty close.
when they left the last tree, doctor rabbit said, “now let’s run good and fast the rest of the way!”
and they did—hoppity, hoppity, hoppity, so fast that they looked like two long gray streaks going toward jack rabbit’s home.
