Suddenly, down came a rabbit, jumping high in the air, his huge ears flapping forward and back, as if they had wilted in the hot sun.
Then another rabbit, then another! Then ten, twenty, forty, fifty, five hundred, a thousand, all jumping over each other and upon each other, and against the nets, with their long legs thrust through the meshes, and wriggling and struggling till the nets shook as in a gale.
Then came the long lines of half-naked brown boys tumbling down after them out of the brush, and striking right and left, up and down, with their clubs.
In less than ten minutes from the time they came out of the brush, the little fellows had laid down their clubs and were dragging the game together.
The grave professors shook their hats and handkerchiefs, and shouted with delight from their windows overhead, and all the white boys danced about, wild with excitement.
That is, all but one or two. The boy from Boston said savagely to the little Aztec, as he stood directing the counting of the ears, “You’re a brigand! You’re the black brigand of San Diego City, and I can whip you!”
The brigand said nothing, but kept on with his work.
In a little time the president and head gardener came forward, and roughly estimated that about one thousand of the pests had been destroyed. Then the kindly president went to the bank and brought out one hundred silver dollars, which he handed to the little Bear-Slayer of San Diego in a cotton handkerchief.
The poor, timid little fellow’s lips quivered. He had never seen so much money in all his life. He held his head down in silence for a long time and seemed to be thinking hard. His half-naked little brothers and cousins grouped about and seemed to be waiting for a share of the money.