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“I couldn’t do that!” Nibble gasped and Doctor Muskrat nodded.

“Of course not,” said Trailer, quite proudly, too. “But that’s what I was made for. My mother taught me to use my nose before my eyes were open and to sing the trailing song as soon as I could talk above a whimper.”

“Sing it,” begged the woodsfolk. “Please.”

Trailer raised his head and bayed with an open throat:

“Drop your nose on the odorous trail,

For the warmest footprint soon grows stale.

Tow-row-row!

Leap the fences, plough through the mire,

At a steady gallop that’s slow to tire,

Follow the game of the hounds’ desire.

Raise your eyes—There he flies!

Hail!

Mark the flick of his fleeting tail!

Tow-row-row!”

“You see,” he explained, “one dog doesn’t do all the singing. He sings one line and someone else answers with the next one, round and round again.”

The sound sent a queer, scary thrill through Nibble Rabbit. But now he wasn’t really afraid of the smiling hound any more than he was of Watch.

Watch sat with his ears pricked and his nostrils twitching while he listened to the Hound’s Hunting Song. “Eh, but that’s grand!” he barked. “It puts the tickle into your feet to be up and running.”