they all wear brown dresses these days, and one cannot tell them
from the weeds and grass."

Just then his eyes opened wide. "Can I believe it?" he whispered. "Is
that one of them going down the mountain this minute--and with a white
dress on? Yes, sir, it is!"

Then Mr. Fox looked all about him very sharply, this way and that, for
his own coat was black as coal, and could be seen quite well against the
brown grass when he moved. But when he lay quite still, you couldn't
tell him from a stone. He was not afraid that Little Miss Ptarmigan
would see him. He knew where she was, and could hide behind rocks until
he came close to her.

After Mr. Fox had looked all about him very sharply, this way and that,
he began to creep around this rock and that one, all the time drawing
closer to innocent, foolish Little Miss Ptarmigan, whose white dress
showed plain as day against the brown earth. And presently he was right
behind a big rock she must pass in just another minute. And then he was
so close that it seemed almost as if she could hear him breathe.

But she didn't. She just walked along, thinking about the fine things
Madam White Owl had said to her, till zing! something sprang at her. She
gave a frightened scream and flew to one side, but she was too late.
Something sharp and cruel closed down on the toe of her pink shoes. It
was the teeth of Mr. Black Fox's sausage grinder. But he closed them
down a little too hard, for it cut the toe right off the pink shoe, and
the tips of Little Miss Ptarmigan's pink toes besides, and away she
flew, screaming with pain, toward a white snow bank in the valley.
There each little hurt toe left a red spot on the white snow, and my,
how they did ache!

One day quite a while later, when Little White Fox was over among the
brown rocks at the foot of Saw Tooth Mountain, he heard a scratch,
scratch! among the dry grasses behind him. He turned around, and there
stood a little stranger dressed all in brown. She looked wonderfully
like Miss Ptarmigan. She was just about the same size, and her shoes and
stockings were just the same shade of pink.

"Hello, Little White Fox!" she cried. "I thought you said you could find
me when summer came and the ground was all brown. You have been looking
for me a whole week, and I have been out here all the time. You saw me
yesterday, but you didn't know me, because I had put on my summer
clothes. Oh, Little White Fox, you are a very wise fellow! A very wise