He studied the rabbit with a great deal of interest, noting particularly the position of the body and the ears. He knew now how he would set up the first one he brought to bay.
“It’s a lucky thing for you that I left my gun behind, my fine fellow,” said Oscar, as he rode slowly toward the rabbit, which gazed at him as if he were no more to be feared than one of the sage-bushes that lined the path. “You would be booked for Yarmouth, sure. If I only had you out on the open prairie, I’d make you show how fast you could run!”
When the rabbit thought Oscar had come near enough, he began moving away with long, deliberate bounds, and at the same moment the boy gave his pony the rein and started forward in pursuit.
The animal heard the clatter of hoofs behind him, and letting out two or three sections in its hind legs,—that is the way old plainsmen express it, when they want one to understand that a rabbit has made up his mind to exhibit his best speed,—he shot ahead like an arrow from a bow, and was out of sight in a twinkling.
He did not turn into the bushes, but kept straight down the path, completely distancing the pony before the latter had made a dozen jumps.
“Oh, if I only had some dogs like the colonel’s!” said Oscar, after he had succeeded in making his horse comprehend that he was expected to settle down into a walk once more. “With a brace of greyhounds to run antelopes, wolves, and jack rabbits, and a well broken pointer to hunt sage hens, one could see splendid sport right here in the neighborhood of the fort. I am sure those birds would lie well to a dog, and I have not the least doubt——”
The young hunter’s soliloquy was cut short by the sight of an apparition in blue flannel and buckskin which just then came into view.
It proved, on second look, to be a man dressed in the garb of a hunter; but such a man and such a garb Oscar had never seen before. No description could do them justice.
The man belonged on the plains, that was evident. So did Big Thompson, to whom Oscar had that day been introduced; but the two were as different in appearance as darkness and daylight.
The one had gained Oscar’s confidence the moment he looked at him; but the sight of this man aroused a very different feeling in his breast, and caused him to bless his lucky stars that the meeting had taken place so near the fort.