ld
and mowing a swath of incredible proportions, could scarcely have
pillaged the land of its conies more thoroughly.

Before the on-press of the two-mile wall of red men with their smoking
weapons, the panic-stricken rabbits scurried helplessly. Soon or late
they must double back to their burrows, soon or late they must
therefore die.

Behind the army, fully twenty Indian ponies, ridden by the
youngster-braves of the cavalcade, were bearing great white burdens of
the slaughtered hares.

The glint of gun-barrels, shining in the sun, flung back the light,
from end to end of the undulating column. Billows of smoke,
out-puffing unexpectedly, anywhere and everywhere along the line,
marked down the tragedies where desperate bunnies, scudding from cover
and racing up or down before the red men, were targets for fiercely
biting hail of lead from two or three or more of the guns at once.

And nearly as frightened as the helpless creatures of the brush was a
tiny little pony-rider, back of the army, mounted on a plodding horse
that was all but hidden by its load of furry game. He was riding
double, this odd little bit of a youngster, with a sturdy Indian boy
who was on in front. That such a timid little dot of manhood should
have been permitted to join the hunt was a wonder. He was apparently
not more than three years old at the most. With funny little trousers
that reached to his heels, with big brown eyes all eloquent of doubt,
and with round, little, copper-colored cheeks, impinged upon by an old
fur cap he wore, pulled down over forehead and ears, he appeared about
as quaint a little man as one could readily discover.

But he seemed distressed. And how he did hang on! The rabbits secured
upon the pony were crowding him backward most alarmingly. At first he
had clung to the back of his fellow-rider's shirt with all the might
and main of his tiny hands. As the burden of the rabbits had
increased, however, the Indian hunters had piled them in between the
timid little scamp and his sturdier companion, till now he was almost
out on the horse's tail. His alarm had, therefore, become
overwhelming. No fondness for the nice warm fur of the bunnies, no
faith in the larger boy in front, could suffice to drive from his tiny
face the look of woe unutterable, expressed by his eyes and his
trembling little mouth.

The Indians, marching steadily onward, had come to the mountain that
bounded the plain. Already a score we