By and by Peter awoke.  For a minute he couldn’t think where he was.  Then he remembered.  But for a long time he sat perfectly still, thinking of his adventures and wondering if he would be missed down on the Green Meadows.  Then all of a sudden Peter saw something that made him sit up so suddenly that he cried “Ouch!” for he had forgotten all about how stiff and sore he was.

What do you think Peter saw?  Tracks!  Yes, Sir, he saw tracks, Rabbit tracks in the soft mud, and Peter knew that he hadn’t made them!

CHAPTER VIII

THE STRANGE TRACKS IN THE OLD PASTURE

 Who has attentive ear and eye
 Will learn a lot if he but try. 
                              Peter Rabbit.

Peter Rabbit stared and stared at the tracks in the soft mud of the swamp in the Old Pasture.  He would look first at the tracks, then at his own feet, and finally back at the tracks again.  He scratched his long right ear with his long right hind foot.  Then he scratched his long left ear with his long left hind foot, all the time staring his hardest at those strange tracks.  They certainly were the tracks of a Rabbit, and it was equally certain that they were not his own.

“They are too big for mine, and they are too small for Jumper the Hare’s.  Besides, Jumper is in the Green Forest and not way off up here,” said Peter to himself.  “I wonder—­well, I wonder if he will try to drive me away.”

You see Peter knew that if he had found a strange Rabbit in his dear Old Briar-patch he certainly would have tried his best to drive him out, for he felt that the Old Briar-patch belonged to him.  Now he wondered if the maker of these tracks would feel the same way about the Old Pasture.  Peter looked troubled as he thought it over.  Then his face cleared.

“Perhaps,” said he hopefully, “he is a new comer here, too, and if he is, I’ll have just as much right here as he has.  Perhaps he simply has big feet and isn’t any bigger or stronger than I am, and if that’s the case I’d like to see him drive me out!”

Peter swelled himself out and tried to look as big as he could when he said this, but swelling himself out this way reminded him of how stiff and sore he was from the wounds given him by Hooty the Owl, and he made a wry face.  You see he realized all of a sudden that he didn’t feel much like fighting.

“My,” said Peter, “I guess I’d better find out all about this other fellow before I have any trouble with him.  The Old Pasture looks big enough for a lot of Rabbits, and perhaps if I don’t bother him, he won’t bother me.  I wonder what he looks like.  I believe I’ll follow these tracks and see what I can find.”

So Peter began to follow the tracks of the strange Rabbit, and he was so interested that he almost forgot to limp.  They led him this way and they led him that way through the swamp and then out of it.  At the foot of a certain birch-tree Peter stopped.