trail. The trick, whether planned or
not, was a success, and the Rabbit got rid of his troublesome follower.

Next day the stranger made another search for the Jack and found, not
himself, but his track. He knew it by its tail-mark, its long leaps and
few spy-hops, but with it and running by it was the track of a smaller
Rabbit. Here is where they met, here they chased each other in play,
for no signs of battle were there to be seen; here they fed or sat
together in the sun, there they ambled side by side, and here again
they sported in the snow, always together. There was only one
conclusion: this was the mating season. This was a pair of
Jack-rabbits--the Little Warhorse and his mate.

IV

Next summer was a wonderful year for the Jack-rabbits. A foolish law
had set a bounty on Hawks and Owls and had caused a general massacre of
these feathered policemen. Consequently the Rabbits had multiplied in
such numbers that they now were threatening to devastate the country.

The farmers, who were the sufferers from the bounty law, as well as the
makers of it, decided on a great Rabbit drive. All the county was
invited to come, on a given morning, to the main road north of the
county, with the intention of sweeping the whole region up-wind and at
length driving the Rabbits into a huge corral of close wire netting.
Dogs were barred as unmanageable, and guns as dangerous in a crowd; but
every man and boy carried a couple of long sticks and a bag full of
stones. Women came on horseback and in buggies; many carried rattles or
horns and tins to make a noise. A number of the buggies trailed a
string of old cans or tied laths to scrape on the wheel-spokes, and
thus add no little to the deafening clatter of the drive. As Rabbits
have marvellously sensitive hearing, a noise that is distracting to
mankind, is likely to prove bewildering to them.

The weather was right, and at eight in the morning the word to advance
was given. The line was about five miles long at first, and there was a
man or a boy every thirty or forty yards. The buggies and riders kept
perforce almost entirely to the roads; but the beaters were supposed,
as a point of honor, to face everything, and keep the front unbroken.
The advance was roughly in three sides of a square. Each man made as
much noise as he could, and threshed every bush in his path. A number
of Rabbits hopped out. Some made for the lines, to be at once assailed
by a shower of stones that laid