Horace grumbled something to himself as he jumped into the small river that he and his friends had to cross. Horace was really getting tired of swimming through rivers, foraging through thorn bushes, and slowly traveling through gaps of trees all to find some warren that might not even exist. Horace knew that Splotch was no idiot, but he didn't think that Splotch was using the best judgment when he decided to follow what the mouse had said. Nevertheless, Horace knew that Splotch was a lot smarter than Flash and Snowfoot, and even himself for that matter. Also, Horace knew that mice didn't usually lie to rabbits for many obvious reasons.
"Snowfoot," Horace called out to his companion who had already crossed the river, "Snowfoot, where are you."
"Shhhh, be quite," Snowfoot snapped in a loud whisper. Snowfoot was hiding behind a bramble bush and seemed to be intently watching something. "Don't you see that cat over by those trees?"
Sure enough, when Horace crouched down next to Snowfoot, he could see a medium-sized male tabby cat eating what appeared to be the remains of a young stoat. "How long have you been watching this thing for?" asked Horace.
"For the past two minutes maybe," Snowfoot replied. "I was just walking around after I got out of that river and I just stumbled upon that thing. It saw me, but it just snarled at me and told me to get away. It might have attacked me if it hadn't already killed the stoat."
"Why didn't you fight it," Horace asked. "I've seen you and Flash drive off quite a few stoats and weasels since I've joined your company."
"I don't fight cats," Snowfoot said calmly. "They can fight a lot better than these weasels and stoats around here, that's probably why it killed this one stoat, and they are a little bit smarter than the red foxes that live around here." Snowfoot and Horace sat in silence for about a minute and watched the cat finish its meal and walk away. After it left, Splotch walked up to them. He had a small scratch on his cheek an on his haunch.
"Thanks for helping me and Flash drive off that young weasel," Splotch said sarcastically. "Where were you guys anyways."
"We were watching some cat that came around here," Horace said. "It never really posed any threat to us, but we thought that we'd better keep an eye on it for a while. And what weasel are you talking about."
"Oh, a small weasel about five months old attacked Flash," Splotch answered. "It didn't do too much harm to him, but it did scratch me when I tried to bite it. "Anyways," he continued, "Flash drove it off within a minute, and now he's looking to see if there's any more weasels about."
Snowfoot was about to say something, when Flash himself hopped up to them. "We'd better get out of here as fast as we can, Flash said, "There's a homba on the other side of the river we just crossed. It appears to have caught our scent."
"I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary when I was on that side," Horace replied. "Nevertheless, we'd better get out of here before that fox gets anywhere nearer to us." All four of the wanderers bean to run at that moment as if the fox was right behind them.