“Oh, yes. There is a fine pack of hounds at Arlington,” drawled Sue.
“Sho!” chuckled Pratt. “I should think they’d teach the dogs around Boston to follow the trail of a bean-bag. Wouldn’t it be easier?”
“Oh, dear me!” exclaimed Miss Latrop. “Don’t you think you are witty? And look at those dogs!”
“What’s the matter with them?” asked one of the girls.
“Why, they are all limbs! What perfectly spidery-looking animals! Did you ever—”
“You wait a bit,” laughed Mrs. Edwards. “Those long-legged dogs are just what we need hunting the jacks. And if we didn’t have guns, at that, there would be few of the rabbits caught. All ready, Sam Harding?”
“Jest when Miss Frances says the word, Ma’am,” returned the foreman, coolly.
“Of course! Frances is mistress of the hunt,” said the ranchman’s wife, good-naturedly.
Sue Latrop had been coaxed to leave her Eastern-bred horse behind on this occasion, and was upon one of the ponies broken to side-saddle work. The tall bay would scarcely know how to keep his feet out of gopher-holes in such a chase as was now inaugurated.
“Be careful how you use your guns,” Frances said, quietly, when Sam and the Mexican, with the dogs, started off to round a certain greasewood-covered mound and see if they could start some of the long-eared animals.