Page:Bambi A Life in the Woods (1928).pdf/141

heard it at the very moment when his wits were wandering and he wanted to dash away.

He looked around. All sorts of creatures were swarming past, scampering blindly over one another. A pair of weasels ran by like thin snakelike streaks. The eye could scarcely follow them. A ferret listened as though bewitched to every shriek that desperate Friend Hare let out.

A fox was standing in a whole flurry of fluttering pheasants. They paid no attention to him. They ran right under his nose and he paid no attention to them. Motionless, with his head thrust forward, he listened to the onrushing tumult, lifting his pointed ears and snuffed the air with his nose. Only his tail moved, slowly wagging with his intense concentration.

A pheasant dashed up. He had come from where the danger was worst, and was beside himself with fear.

“Don’t try to fly,” he shouted to the others. “Don’t fly, just run! Don’t lose your head! Don’t try to fly! Just run, run, run!”

He kept repeating the same thing over and over again as though to encourage himself. But he no longer knew what he was saying.