THE BEAR-SLAYER. 137 



ral at night by hundreds, but they are only 

 little bits of shaggy, gray coyotes and do 

 little or no harm in comparison with the 

 innumerable rabbits. For these big fel 

 lows, on their long, bent legs, and with 

 ears like those of a donkey, can cut down 

 with their teeth a young orchard almost in 

 a single night. 



The new college, of course, had new 

 grounds, new bananas, oranges, olives, al] 

 things, indeed, that wealth and good taste 

 could contribute in this warm, sweet soil. 

 But the rabbits! You could not build a 

 fence so high that they would not leap 

 over it. 



"They are a sort of Jumbo grasshopper," 

 said the smart boy from Boston. 



The head gardener of the college campus 

 and environment grew desperate. 



"Look here, sir," he said to the presi 

 dent, "these big-eared fellows are lazy and 

 audacious things. Why can't they live up 

 in the chaparral, as they did before we 

 came here to plant trees and try to make 



