All hands went to work to prepare for the night. While the preparations for camping were going on, the cook, Kit Duncan (the hardest worked, and consequently sourest and snarliest man in the party), who was also a teamster, went down to the stream to fill his kettle with water.
A “jack-rabbit,” startled at his approach, sprung from under a projecting sand-point, and darted away up the bank. As it gracefully and rapidly “loped” away, Christina (or Kissie, as we shall call her), ever on the alert, noticed it.
“Oh, what an enormous rabbit!” she cried. “The largest I ever saw. Pray, Simpson, is that the common rabbit?”
“No. Jack-rabbit.”
“What a very odd name. Why do they call it so?”
The guide did not give the true answer—that because of its resemblance to a laughable beast of burden; but answered shortly, as he filled his pipe:
“Big ear; like—like—like—donkey.”
“Oh, hum! I perceive. See, it has stopped under that little bush. There—Oh, my! it is hurt—it is lame! see how it limps—I will catch it, it is so curious.”
Kissie was impulsive. Without further preface she lightly struck the sorrel pony with her riding whip, and on a swift gallop went after the rabbit, which slowly limped away.
The guide, being the only idle one, alone noticed her. He shook with suppressed laughter, awaiting the result.