He grunted again, and the little girl, eager and impatient, turned the blind black pony about in circles.
"Ay catch 'em, ay kill 'em," the Swede boy said finally. There was a significant tone in his voice, and a gleam in the pale eyes under the tow hair. "An' yo' gate th' mownay," he added.
They were on the edge of the timothy meadow as soon as the pony, with his double load, could cover the distance. And while the little girl tied the horse to a big stone on the slope of the carnelian bluff, the Swede boy hastened to a gopher-hole and fixed the noose about it. A moment later, when she came stealthily running up behind him, he was already flat upon the ground and waiting.
It was not long before the gopher poked his nose out to see if his pursuer was near, and, catching sight of a ragged felt hat just above a clump of pigweed, stood up to investigate. The next instant the Swede boy had him and, springing to his feet, cast a triumphant look behind. But what was his amazement to see the little girl, bareheaded, fast disappearing through the corn!
When she came slowly back, the Swede boy was again stretched upon his stomach, and watching a hole nearer the center of the meadow. The little girl did not follow him, but stayed on the rim and pityingly viewed the limp gopher that lay, with eyes half closed, breast still, and tail thin and lifeless.
"Poor fing!" she said sympathetically, "it's 'cause you stealed the corn."
Then she opened his mouth with the butt end of her willow riding-switch, to find out what he had in his cheek-pouches. An onion and a few marrowfat peas rolled out, and the little girl, kneeling beside him, eyed him sternly.
"And so," she said, waving her hand toward the barren strip, "after pickin' up all that corn, you gophers have to go a-snoopin' round the veg'table patch!"
She left him and went on to the corn-marker, his tail, taken in righteous wrath, bearing her jack-knife company in the long, narrow pocket of her apron. But when she had sat down musingly, her chin in her hands, a strange thing happened to the dead gopher on the meadow rim. He moved a little, slowly unclosed his eyes, raised his head, and looked about; and, unseen by the Swede boy and the little girl, crawled away, through the clods that had only stunned him, to the corn-field, where, with many a cross seek, he nursed the hairy stump that henceforth was to serve him for a tail.
Dinnerless, but forgetful of hunger in the sport of capture, the little girl and the Swede boy stayed on. Once, during the afternoon, a gopher stopped their work by getting away with the snare and leaving them only half of the string. But the blind black pony good-naturedly furnished enough wiry strands for another slipping-noose, and the hunt went on.