Читать книгу Tad Coon's Tricks онлайн

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Nibble Rabbit squirmed closer to the Pickery Things. He wasn’t afraid of the dogs, but he felt very queer. “It starts my feet tickling, too,” he sniffed. “And my fur’s all fluffed out like a moulting bird.”

Trailer laughed. “That’s partly what we sing it for,” he explained. “It rouses up you Game Beasts and gets you running, and when your coat stands up on end your scent is easier to follow.”

“You don’t say?” Nibble’s eyes were sparkling. “Then that’s why the Quail say ‘Hold your scent!’ when they mean ‘sleek down your feathers.’”

“Exactly,” nodded Trailer. “And they’re so clever that it takes a special dog, who makes a business of birds, to find them. He has a special song, too, but I never learned it. I only follow furry things.”

“That was splendid!” put in Doctor Muskrat, who had been listening thoughtfully to the talk. He wasn’t at all sorry because the dogs had politely left him a clear path to the water. He could have dived in a flash if he had wanted to. “You’ve made the frogs very jealous, Mr. Trailer.” Sure enough, the frogs were tuning up all over the pond. “There’s something very queer about this,” he went on. “Your song doesn’t do anything to me—because I’ve never been chased that way. But there was one dog, a noisy little one, who used to drive me nearly out of my wits when I was younger.”