FLUFF-BUTTON THE RABBIT 
127 
was scraped away all round he began to munch 
the frozen grass blades. In some measure his 
presence reassured Cuni. She ceased to struggle, 
and in the perfect bliss of her mate's proximity 
almost forgot the mysterious enemy that held her. 
Meanwhile the face of the night was changed. 
A snowstorm came up and drove tiny stinging 
flakes over the woods. They sifted into the rabbits' 
coats until Fluff-Button hopped inside the wall, 
shaking his ears. Cuni tried to follow, and although 
that unknown something clutched her again, yet 
it permitted her to creep just inside the hole. Her 
body prevented the entrance of the driving snow, 
and Fluff-Button came and snuggled against her 
warm vest, while his twitching whiskers left soft 
' butterfly kisses ' on her nose. In the mother- 
instinct, which is as easily awakened in the woods 
as among men, Cuni forgot that Fluff-Button was 
the King-Buck whose will was law in the warren, and 
only remembered that he was cold and came to her 
for warmth. She disregarded the snow which 
chilled her from without, and licked him with 
her warm tongue as tenderly as if he had been 
a sleepy suckling in the nesting burrow. 
The snowstorm passed and the rab- 
bits came out again. The moon 
sailed up a sky as black and 
