He is built for speed and looks it. From just a glance at him you
would know him for a runner just as surely as a look at Jumper the
Hare would tell you that he must travel in great bounds. The truth
is, Fleetfoot is the fastest runner among all my children in this
country. Not one can keep up with him in a race.
"Fleetfoot's coat is a light yellowish-brown on the back and white
underneath. His forehead is brown and the sides of his face white.
His throat and under side of his neck are white, crossed by two bands
of brown. His hoofs, horns and eyes are black, and there is a black
spot under each ear. Near the end of his nose he is also black, and
down the back of his neck is a black line of stiff longer hairs. A
large white patch surrounds his short tail. Who remembers what I
told you about Antelope Jack, the big Jack Hare of the Southwest?"
"I do!" cried Peter Rabbit and Jumper the Hare together.
"What was it, Jumper?" asked Old Mother Nature.
"You said that he has a way of making the white of his sides seem
to grow so that he seems almost all white, and can signal his
friends in this way," replied Jumper.
"Quite right," replied Old Mother Nature. "I am glad to find that
you remember so well. Fleetfoot does the same thing with this
white patch around his tail. The hairs are quite long and he can
make them spread out so that that white patch becomes much larger,
and when he is running it can be seen flashing in the sun long after
he is so far away that nothing else of him can be seen.
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