served but to emphasize the
spacious emptiness of the silent winter landscape.

Out from one of the snow-streaked thickets jumped a white rabbit, its
long ears waving nervously, and paused for a second to look back with
a frightened air. It had realized that some enemy was on its trail,
but what that enemy was, it did not know. After this moment of
perilous hesitation, it went leaping forward across the open, leaving
a vivid track in the soft surface snow. The little animal's discreet
alarm, however, was dangerously corrupted by its curiosity; and at the
lower edge of the field, before going through a snake fence and
entering another thicket, it stopped, stood up as erect as possible on
its strong hind quarters, and again looked back. As it did so, the
unknown enemy again revealed himself, just emerging, a slender and
sinister black shape, from the upper thicket. A quiver of fear passed
over the rabbit's nerves. Its curiosity all effaced, it went through
the fence with an elongated leap and plunged into the bushes in a
panic. Here it doubled upon itself twice in a short circle, trusting
by this well-worn device to confuse the unswerving pursuer. Then,
breaking out upon the lower side of the thicket, it resumed its
headlong flight across the fields.

Meanwhile the enemy, a large mink, was following on the trail with the
dogged persistence of a sleuth-hound. Sure of his methods, he did not
pause to see what the quarry was doing, but kept his eyes and nose
occupied with the fresh tracks. His speed was not less than that of
the rabbit, and his endurance was vastly greater. Being very long in
the body, and extremely short in the legs, he ran in a most peculiar
fashion, arching his lithe back almost like a measuring-worm and
straightening out like a steel spring suddenly released. These sinuous
bounds were grotesque enough in appearance, but singularly effective.
The trail they made, overlapping that of the rabbit, but quite
distinct from it, varied according to the depth of the surface snow.
Where the snow lay thin, just deep enough to receive an imprint, the
mink's small feet left a series of delicate, innocent-looking marks,
much less formidable in appearance than those of the pad-footed
fugitive. But where the loose snow had gathered deeper the mink's long
body and sinewy tail from time to time stamped themselves
unmistakably.

When the mink reached the second thicket, his keen and experienced
craft penetrated at once