To see Br’er Rabbit at his best, that is, at his own playful comical self, one must turn hunter, and learn how to sit still, and be patient.  Only you must not hunt in the usual way; not by day, for then Bunny is stowed away in his form on the sunny slope of a southern hillside, where one’s eyes will never find him; not with gun and dog, for then the keen interest and quick sympathy needed to appreciate any phase of animal life gives place to the coarser excitement of the hunt; and not by going about after Bunny, for your heavy footsteps and the rustle of leaves will only send him scurrying away into safer solitudes.  Find where he loves to meet with his fellows, in quiet little openings in the woods.  There is no mistaking his playground when once you have found it.  Go there by moonlight and, sitting still in the shadow, let your game find you, or pass by without suspicion; for this is the best way to hunt, whether one is after game or only a better knowledge of the ways of bird and beast.

The very best spot I ever found for watching Bunny’s ways was on the shore of a lonely lake in the heart of a New Brunswick forest.  I hardly think that he was any different there, for I have seen some of his pranks repeated within sight of a busy New England town; but he was certainly more natural.  He had never seen a man before, and he was as curious about it as a blue jay.  No dog’s voice had ever wakened the echoes within fifty miles; but every sound of the wilderness he seemed to know a thousand times better than I. The snapping of the smallest stick under the stealthy tread of fox or wildcat would send him scurrying out of sight in wild alarm; yet I watched a dozen of them at play one night when a frightened moose went crashing through the underbrush and plunged into the lake near by, and they did not seem to mind it in the least.

The spot referred to was the only camping ground on the lake; so Simmo, my Indian guide, assured me; and he knew very well.  I discovered afterward that it was the only cleared bit of land for miles around; and this the rabbits knew very well.  Right in the midst of their best playground I pitched my tent, while Simmo built his lean-to near by, in another little opening.  We were tired that night, after a long day’s paddle in the sunshine on the river.  The after-supper chat before the camp fire—­generally the most delightful bit of the whole day, and prolonged as far as possible—­was short and sleepy; and we left the lonely woods to the bats and owls and creeping things, and turned in for the night.

I was just asleep when I was startled by a loud thump twice repeated, as if a man stamped on the ground, or, as I thought at the time, just like the thump a bear gives an old log with his paw, to see if it is hollow and contains any insects.  I was wide awake in a moment, sitting up straight to listen.  A few minutes passed by in intense stillness; then, thump! thump! thump! just outside the tent among the ferns.