“nonsense!” said nibble rabbit. “there wasn’t any man. they don’t come here. you must have had a bad dream.”

“no, i didn’t,” she insisted. “i was wide awake and i saw him as plain as plain.”

nibble sniffed the air, but the wind had blown all the scent away, so he didn’t believe her. when he turned to her again she was trying to eat the twigs that she could reach with her long tongue. “hey! don’t you know better than that?” he demanded. “you’ll get pickers in your mouth, and, what’s much worse, you’ll feel awfully queer and sick inside of you. doctor muskrat says you should only eat that tree for medicine.”

nibble felt very wise and grown-up beside this foolish cow. she wasn’t really wild and she wasn’t really tame. poor beast! no wonder she was scary. she didn’t know enough to be either thing properly. “come along!” he ordered. “i’ll take you down for a drink and then you can eat the willows. if you’re like the partridge you can nip the tips off a cottonwood that your long neck will reach up to.”

so the red cow hove herself up to her feet, tail first, as is the custom of cows, and followed him obediently. and he showed her the way to the warm spring that was doctor muskrat’s front door.

it was a good thing he was polite and let her drink first. for as soon as she began dragging her clumsy toes in the muck to spread them far enough apart so she could get her nose into the water—“clang!” went the cold steely jaws of another trap.

she jumped back, snorting and waving her tassely tail, while she cocked her eyes to try and see it. but nibble wasn’t paying any attention to her. he was thumping and bumping as hard as ever he could with his soft furry feet and calling “doctor muskrat! doctor muskrat! doctor muskrat!”

“eh?” said the old doctor as his nose came up out of the water (and the cow snorted at him harder than ever), “what’s all this?” he sniffed at her inquiringly.

“oh, doctor muskrat,” nibble almost cried. “look! it’s more jaws!”

“ah!” the old beast examined them wisely and shook his head. “what did i tell you? you can’t trust even tommy peele! he was just pretending to make friends with us so we’d forget to be afraid and he could catch us again!”

“i guess you’re right,” murmured nibble. but he felt very badly about it—for he really liked tommy.

just then the red cow spoke up. she didn’t understand doctor muskrat, but she caught tommy’s name. and although she didn’t like tommy herself, even a stupid cow knows enough to be honest. “i told you i saw that man,” she said to nibble. “well, it surely wasn’t tommy!”

“it wasn’t, eh?” snapped doctor muskrat. “we’ll just see about that.” he dove again. he came up looking very puzzled. “tommy’s jaws are still biting the mud, just where he threw them.” he reported. “we’ll watch what he does when he finds these.”

it was saturday, so as soon as tommy had finished his chores up at the barn, he whistled to his old dog, watch, and came tramping down the fields with his tall rubber boots. he had a cap full of meal and an ear of corn in his pocket. yes! and he had a nice lump of fat for chewee the chickadee and a string to tie it to a branch with.

but nibble didn’t come running to meet him. he was crouching back in the reeds with doctor muskrat. and the red cow had lumbered off to her own hiding-place in the thicket that nibble had showed her.

“come, bunny, bunny,” called tommy, in his nice voice that fairly made nibble’s feet itch to run to him. he crept up softly near the warm spring so as not to scare his muskrat. then he saw the footprints—the big ones of the red cow, and the little ones of nibble rabbit, and the paws of doctor muskrat with his toe gone, for now it was healed so he could step on it. and there was the trap, sticking right straight up where the cow’s clumsy foot had jerked it.

and wasn’t he angry! just wasn’t he? he was the crossest little boy in all the woods and fields, and the houses, too. because someone was trying to catch his very own wild things that he was trying to make friends with!

the trap was chained to a bulrush stalk and he yanked it right off, stalk and all, he was so angry. and then he did something that showed he was really learning to think quite like a wild thing. it was just what wise old doctor muskrat would have done if he hadn’t been so troubled, deep down inside, that he forgot about everything but tommy. he trailed the footsteps of that other man and he found two other traps. right in his own woods!

“clang! clang!” he had given each of those cold steel jaws a stick to bite on. then he rooted up their chains and tied them all together. “crash!” they went plump down into the mud beside his own. “yah! yah! hooray!” barked watch. he thought that anything tommy did was perfect. and he wagged his big wavy tail so very hard that at last his tail wagged him and he waltzed around and around.

and then nibble came bouncing up with his ears in the air, and doctor muskrat waddled after him. but doctor muskrat stopped at the edge of the reeds because, you know, he and watch hadn’t made friends. still, he looked very kindly at tommy and he came out in a great hurry to get his meal when tommy moved away.

but watch nearly scared him when he turned around to ask: “nibble, do you know where i’ll find that red cow?”