Peter Rabbit woke from his afternoon nap and came out the back door with his nose to the boards and vacuumed the scent up his nostrils as he followed it over to the end of the porch and around the old wringer washing machine and then back to the steps and down them. He snuffled and snorted and blew bits of grass and dust and dead bugs up with short explosions from his nose and then headed out across the yard. He was actively snorting and snuffling some kind of enthusiastic nose language as he followed it around one of the catalpa trees and then out past one of the leaning sheds and then back around the old pickup and then over to the side of the house and then back across the yard where he crossed the scent again and was puzzled and then began to go in circles until he crossed out on the other side of it and followed it over to where Montrel’s car used to sit and then back across the yard under the clothesline that was propped up with a few rotted planks and that held only Cleve’s underwear and a few T-shirts. He stopped and snorted. He wagged his tail. He didn’t bark. He started moving again and he followed it around the chicken house and back by a pile of old rotting wooden Coke cases and down beside the edge of the yard. He stopped again. He backtracked. He backtracked again and picked it back up where he had turned around and followed it along the wall of tall grass beside the hog pen and then he stopped at the other catalpa tree and looked up it. He sat down, looking up it. Then he stood up on his hind legs and put one paw on the trunk. And then he barked. Once. Then he barked again. By then he could see the squirrel skin that was hanging in the tree by a rope and he put both feet on the trunk and started barking steadily. He barked and barked and barked and barked and Cleve, hidden behind the door of the corncrib where he could watch him and see how he did with just a skin, sat there looking through the cracks in the boards with something like a shy smile, a pint of whisky in his hand, nodding, sipping.