Pretty soon he came to a bramble-bush,
and under it he could see Old Jed Thumper. For just a minute he
chuckled, a noiseless chuckle, to himself. Then he opened his mouth and
out came that terrible sound which had so frightened all the little
people on the Green Meadows when Old Man Coyote had first come there to
live.
"Ha, ha, ha! Ho, ho, ho!
Hee, hee, hee! Ha, ho, hee, ho!"
Old Jed Thumper never had heard anything like that before. It frightened
him so that before he thought what he was doing he had jumped out from
under the bramble-bush. Of course this was just what Old Man Coyote
wanted. In a flash he was after him, and then began such a race as the
Old Pasture never had seen before. Round and round, this way and that
way, along the cow paths raced Old Jed Thumper with Old Man Coyote at
his heels, until at last, out of breath, so tired that it seemed to him
he couldn't run another step, frightened almost out of his senses, Old
Jed Thumper reached his bull-briar castle and was safe.
Then Old Man Coyote laughed his terrible laugh once more and trotted
over to the tumble-down stone-wall in which his keen nose told him Peter
Rabbit was hiding.
"One good turn deserves another, and I always pay my debts, Peter
Rabbit" said he. "You did me a good turn some time ago down on the Green
Meadows, when you told me how Granny and Reddy Fox were planning to make
trouble for me by leading Bowser the Hound to the place where I took my
daily nap, and now we are even.
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