ell repaid that time for his confidence.

They soon came back again, as I think they would not have done had it
been a natural opening. Had it been one of Nature's own sunny spots,
the owl would have swept back and forth across it; for he knows the
rabbits' ways as well as they know his. But hawks and owls avoid a
spot like this, that men have cleared. If they cross it once in search
of prey, they seldom return. Wherever man camps, he leaves something
of himself behind; and the fierce birds and beasts of the woods fear
it, and shun it. It is only the innocent things, singing birds, and
fun-loving rabbits, and harmless little wood-mice--shy, defenseless
creatures all--that take possession of man's abandoned quarters, and
enjoy his protection. Bunny knows this, I think; and so there is no
other place in the woods that he loves so well as an old camping
ground.

The play was soon over; for it is only in the early part of the
evening, when Br'er Rabbit first comes out after sitting still in his
form all day, that he gives himself up to fun, like a boy out of
school. If one may judge, however, from the looks of Simmo's overalls,
and from the number of times he woke me by scurrying around my tent, I
suspect that he is never too serious and never too busy for a joke. It
is a way he has of brightening the more sober times of getting his own
living, and keeping a sharp lookout for cats and owls and prowling
foxes.

Gradually the playground was deserted, as the rabbits slipped off one
by one to hunt their supper. Now and then there was a scamper among
the underbrush, and a high jump or two, with which some playful bunny
enlivened his search for tender twigs; and at times one, more curious
than the rest, came hopping along to sit erect a moment before the old
log, and look to see if the strange animal were still there. But soon
the old log was vacant too. Out in the swamp a disappointed owl sat on
his lonely stub that lightning had blasted, and hooted that he was
hungry. The moon looked down into the little clearing with its waving
ferns and soft gray shadows, and saw nothing there to suggest that it
was the rabbits' nursery.

Down at the camp a new surprise was awaiting me. Br'er Rabbit was
under the tent fly, tugging away at the salt bag which I had left
there carelessly after curing a bearskin. While he was absorbed in
getting it out from under the rubber blanket, I crept up on hands and
knees, and stroked him once from ea