"Oh, indeed," sniffed the embattled Peggy scornfully; "I suppose you think I can't handle a man's size gun?"
"I didn't say so, my dear sister, and I humbly beg your pardon for anything I may have said which may have hurt your feelings," said Roy with a low and conciliatory bow; "what I meant was that the light twenty-gauge doesn't kick so hard and, moreover, won't blow a rabbit to pieces if you happen to hit him."
"Happen to hit him!" shouted Jess, going into a convulsion of laughter.
"Oh, you know what I mean well enough," protested Roy, coloring somewhat under his tan.
"Want to come, Jimsy?" he asked, after a moment's pause.
"Tramp over those old hills that look as baked as a loaf of overdone bread?" snorted Jimsy. "No, thank you. I'm going to stay home and read a nice book about Greenland's icy mountains."
"And I," declared Jess, vivaciously, "am going to persuade Aunt
Sally to make us some vanilla and strawberry ice cream."
So Roy and Peggy set off alone on their tramp in quest of game. It did not look a promising country for hunting; but, as Mr. Bell had pointed out, an occasional jack rabbit might be met with. It was rough going over the rocks and heavy sand, but Peggy stuck to it manfully, and as a reward for her perseverance, had the honor of bringing down the first game—a small jack rabbit, young and tender, that bounded almost under her feet from the shade of the sage brush in which he had been lying.
This put Roy on his mettle, and brother and sister wandered further than they had intended, urged on by the hope of further success. But no more game of any kind was put up, if we except one distant view they had of a sage hen. This bird was "sage" enough to take wing long before they came within shot of her.
"Good gracious, that sun is lower than I thought," exclaimed Roy, suddenly awakening to the fact that they had wandered a considerable distance from the camp. Several of the monotonous ground-swells of the desert hills, in fact, separated them from it.