One Eye moved impatiently beside her; her unrest came back upon her, and
she knew again her pressing need to find the thing for which she
searched. She turned and trotted back into the forest, to the great
relief of One Eye, who trotted a little to the fore until they were well
within the shelter of the trees.
As they slid along, noiseless as shadows, in the moonlight, they came
upon a run-way. Both noses went down to the footprints in the snow.
These footprints were very fresh. One Eye ran ahead cautiously, his mate
at his heels. The broad pads of their feet were spread wide and in
contact with the snow were like velvet. One Eye caught sight of a dim
movement of white in the midst of the white. His sliding gait had been
deceptively swift, but it was as nothing to the speed at which he now
ran. Before him was bounding the faint patch of white he had discovered.
They were running along a narrow alley flanked on either side by a growth
of young spruce. Through the trees the mouth of the alley could be seen,
opening out on a moonlit glade. Old One Eye was rapidly overhauling the
fleeing shape of white. Bound by bound he gained. Now he was upon it.
One leap more and his teeth would be sinking into it. But that leap was
never made. High in the air, and straight up, soared the shape of white,
now a struggling snowshoe rabbit that leaped and bounded, executing a
fantastic dance there above him in the air and never once returning to
earth.
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