Within the circle of the moonlit glade a dozen hares were already assembled, and more were coming in from every side. Mammy Cottontail drew up in the shadow of a tree trunk, that the youngsters might get their courage up before joining those in the open. Soon there were half a hundred bunnies, young and old, together, scampering about and having a glorious good time. They pranced and they danced and they raced one another. They leapt back and forth across a log and they leap-frogged over one another, kicking their heels to the moon. There was never a sound to break the stillness save the chirping of crickets away back in the meadow they had left. Then, so suddenly that Mammy’s heart gave an extra beat, there came the warning thump! thump! thump! just behind them! [Illustration: [Rabbit]] XXV TWINKLY EYES ATTENDS THE FROLIC Now Twinkly Eyes, the little Black Bear, had no idea when he awoke of all that was going on so near him. But ambling down to Pollywog Pond for a drink after his feast of honey, the sound of his crunching over a dead twig was enough to warn the sharp ears that ringed about the rabbit frolic; and from first one outpost and then another came the thump, thump, thump, of a half hundred padded feet on the forest floor. In an instant every one of the bunnies which a moment before had been capering madly in the moonlight had sought cover. Mammy Cottontail and her little brood, watching from the shadow of their tree trunk, were already hidden, hearts beating bumpety-bump in their anxiety. For perhaps ten minutes they listened, their hearts sounding like trip hammers in the breathing stillness of the forest night, in which no creature larger than an insect moved, save the silent-winged bats and owls. At least, that was what the listening bunnies thought! But Twinkly Eyes, the sly one!—had heard the thump, thump of the outposts; and he knew just what it meant. Although his little sides were already rounded from his feast of honey, a bear is always hungry. And Twinkly Eyes decided to attend the frolic. If Mammy Cottontail, anxious little mother that she was, had known all that was being plotted in the head of the little Bear, she would have started her brood for home on the fastest gallop. But Twinkly Eyes, for all his weight, had paws padded so softly that he can, when he wants to, steal through the underbrush without a sound to warn his quarry of his coming. Yes, sir, that little rascal can slip through the woods as still as a mouse, and you could sit straining your ears but you would never hear so much as the crunching of a leaf beneath his foot. When he really wants to, he can move like a shadow.