94 FLUFF-BUTTON THE RABBIT 
shield to protect her little ones ; but she was failing 
fast. The airless darkness around her seemed lull 
of noise, hot gasping breathing, and snapping 
teeth. 
Suddenly a strong pungent odour drifted down 
the passage an odour which every rabbit knows 
and fears ; and Brownie made a last despairing 
struggle, for her nose told her as well as her eyes 
could have done that a stoat was loping towards 
the scene of the fight. The rats rallied their forces 
in alarm, and the rabbits stampeded anew, for both 
knew that their most deadly enemy was hunting 
through the warren. 
But for once in a way the stoat brought salvation 
to the rabbits on Garry's Hill, for a rash rat snapped, 
and his teeth met in the newcomer's shoulder. 
Instantly four stiletto points pierced his brain 
he tottered round in a circle, sobbed and died. 
The stoat, with his appetite whetted, passed on and 
drove into the press of rats. They clung round him 
like leeches, but the place was very narrow and they 
could not reach his flanks. In that face-to-face 
combat in the darkness the odds were with the stoat. 
A rat's courage is indomitable and his teeth are 
sharp ; but between them and those of the stoat 
there is all the difference between a scythe and 
a bayonet. Both are good cutting instruments, 
