ted Miss Long-ears from her covert, and
then the fun began--the rabbit leaping off in frightened haste, running
for life, winding and dodging about over the swells of the sparse grass
hillocks, while Ugly, mad with excitement, spread his long, low body
down to the chase. How the little fellow would put in his nose close to
the ground, staunch on the trail as the best-blooded hound, and making
the air ring with his sharp but musical bark! I tell you that was fun!
Ugly always stuck to his game until he had run it to its burrow. He had
not the speed to overtake it.

The summer is not the proper season for rabbit-shooting; so Walter, who
was never to be tempted by the best chance of killing game even a day
out of season, would not permit either Harry or himself to shoot at the
objects of Ugly's furious energy until it was legitimate. That conduct
of Walter and Harry was beyond Ugly's comprehension. I have often seen
him try to understand it. The chase having ended as usual in a safe
burrow, I have noticed Ugly--who, after a very short experience, had
learned not to waste his time in vain digging--turn toward us with a
waddling, disconsolate trot, and having approached a few rods, stop and
sit down to revolve the puzzle over in his mind. He would look where
the rabbit had housed himself, then drop his head, cock up an ear, and
cast an inquiring glance toward us, as much as to say: "Why, _do_ tell
Ugly why you did not shoot that old lap-ears? Ah!" That operation he
would repeat several times before rejoining us, and when he had come up
he would cock his head first one side and then the other, and look into
our faces with most beseeching questioning in those great, keen, brown
eyes of his. Then he would hang behind on our way home, evidently
greatly distressed at his ignorance.

Never mind, good Ugly! I believe you were fully rewarded for weeks of
bewilderment when the time did come for knocking over bunnies.

One afternoon, in returning from one of those rambles, we met our salt
tute hurrying towards us in a great state of haste and perspiration.
When near enough for his hoarse bass voice to reach us, he hailed--

"Well, there you are, boys, at last! I have been hunting for you all
over the cape for the last hour. Ah! Ugly, boy, are you glad to see
the old Captain trudging over the rabbit-ground? Eh? shaggy boy! And
you have been running the bunnies till you are blown, and your masters
would not shoot--eh?