SNOW STORIES 55 



apart and the back ones near apart. Occasionally, 

 instead of four holes, five would show in the snow, 

 and the position of the marks was reversed. A little 

 farther on, and the trail changed. The two near- 

 apart tracks were now in a perpendicular line instead 

 of side by side. To Chingachgook, or Deerslayer, 

 or Daniel Boone, or any other well-known tracker, 

 the trail would have, of course, been an open book. 

 But it had taken an amateur trailer like myself some 

 years to be able to read that snow record aright. 

 The trail was that of a cottontail rabbit. At first 

 he had been hopping contentedly along, with an eye 

 open for anything eatable in the line of winter 

 vegetables. The far-apart tracks were the paw-marks 

 of the big hind-legs, which came in front of the marks 

 made by the fore-paws as they touched the ground 

 at every hop. The five marks were where he had sat 

 down to look around. The fifth mark was the mark 

 of his stubby tail, and when he stopped, the little 

 fore-paws made the near-apart marks in front of 

 the far-apart marks of his hind-feet, instead of be- 

 hind them as when he hopped. 



Suddenly the rabbit detected something alarming 

 coming from behind, for the sedate hops changed 

 into startled bounds. A little farther on the trail 

 said that the rabbit had caught sight of its pursuer 

 as it ran; for a rabbit by the position of its eyes sees 

 backward and forward equally well. The tracks 

 showed a frantic burst of speed. In an effort to get 

 every possible bit of leverage, the fore-legs were 

 twisted so that they struck the ground one behind 



