Raggylug: 



sinking, and she cared no more whether the fox 

 were there or not. Through the reeds she did 

 indeed pass, but once in the weeds her course 

 wavered and slowed, her feeble strokes no longer 

 sent her landward, the ice forming around her, 

 stopped her altogether. In a little while the 

 cold, weak limbs ceased to move, the furry nose- 

 tip of the little mother Cottontail wobbled no 

 more, and the soft brown eyes were closed in 

 death. 



But there was no fox waiting to tear her with 

 ravenous jaws. Rag had escaped the first onset 

 of the foe, and as soon as he regained his wits 

 he came running back to change-off and so help 

 his mother. He met the old fox going round 

 the pond to meet Molly and led him far and 

 away, then dismissed him with a barbed-wire 

 gash on his head, and came to the bank and 

 sought about and trailed and thumped, but all 

 his searching was in vain; he could not find his 

 little mother. He never saw her again, and he 

 never knew whither she went, for she slept her 

 never-waking sleep in the ice-arms of her friend 

 the Water that tells no tales. 



142 



