Several days after Doctor Rabbit had talked to his friends under the big sycamore tree he was hopping along near the edge of the Big Green Woods when he saw Brushtail the Fox hiding behind a tree and looking toward Farmer Roe's house.

Doctor Rabbit crept under a big brush pile and looked in the same direction. What do you suppose Brushtail was watching? Well, he was looking at a big Plymouth Rock hen coming across the field right toward the place where he lay hidden.

Now, if Doctor Rabbit had had something better than a brush pile to hide under, he might have made some sort of noise and warned the hen. But if he had made the least sound, Brushtail would have come diving under that brush pile in a second, for he isn't afraid of brush piles as he is of briar patches.

Pretty soon the hen reached the woods. She stretched up her neck and looked around, but not seeing anything she started into the woods for some crickets. She had gone only a few steps when Brushtail the Fox bounded out, seized her by the neck, and ran off through the Big Green Woods.

Doctor Rabbit followed along behind, going hoppity, hoppity, hoppity, and presently he saw Brushtail splashing along in the Murmuring Brook. He was trotting along in the brook for a distance, for, you see, a hound cannot smell a fox's tracks in the water; and so Yappy could not track him.

Doctor Rabbit stopped and looked.

He saw Brushtail finally cross to the other side of the Murmuring Brook. Brushtail then turned and looked back to see if anybody was following him. He did not see anyone, so, still holding the dead hen in his mouth, he trotted out of sight among the trees.

Of course Doctor Rabbit knew what Brushtail was going to do. He was going to take that hen up the river to Mrs. Brushtail and the little Brushies.

When Brushtail had passed out of sight, Doctor Rabbit did not go home at once. No, he sat down to think. He was trying to think out a way to drive old Brushtail out of the Big Green Woods. He sat there and thought ever and ever so long. Sometimes he thought so hard he scratched his head without knowing it. At other times he curled his mustache.

So he thought and thought, but after a long time he said he would have to give it up for this time. He was not discouraged, for he could tell from the various things he had thought of that something would turn up after a while to help him work out a plan that would get rid of Brushtail the Fox. That was one fine thing about Doctor Rabbit—he would not give up. He kept right on trying.

Well, for the next two days Doctor Rabbit was busy doctoring the little Chipmunk children. They had got into Farmer Roe's apple orchard and had eaten a lot of green apples, in spite of the fact that Mother Chipmunk had told Jimmy Chipmunk, her oldest, that he and the rest of the children should not eat green apples.