THE LAND TURTLE. 175 



der it, I put to it the muzzle of my gun and slightly lifted 

 a land-turtle, rather larger than the palm of my hand, 

 and which Chance had been pointing. Chance made 

 a quiet but eminently disgusted face at the reptile, when, 

 inserting the toe of my boot under it, I kicked the turtle 

 a yard high, and Brutus dashed at it, but on nearly touch 

 ing it with his nose he jumped back his own length 

 into the air, grinning and shaking his head as dogs may 

 have been seen to do at toads, and as if he had known 

 that he was in a strange land of venomous reptiles, and 

 that the innocuous little turtle might be one of them. 

 " Leave it, dear old men," was then the word to my dogs ; 

 and I mounted my pony, and commenced, as it is called 

 in America, my " hunt." 



By this time, afar off in the prairies, I could see a few 

 trees ; arid I knew that they marked the spot where, for 

 the sake of fuel and water, we should encamp for the night : 

 and right in my front there were some grass-cutters 

 making loads of the dried small walking-sticks which in 

 that country the settlers think it no libel to call " hay." 

 Dear old Chance, having stood a few more land-turtles, 

 and paused occasionally in uncertainty on the yellow-breast 

 ed meadow lark, he began to treat such refuse with con^ 

 tempt ; then all at once, when at a long distance from me, 

 I saw him with head erect wave to and fro, or undulate 

 in his course, as the wind served him, and from his gal 

 lop come to a steady draw, and then to a decided point, 

 with listless ears floating back in the wind, as if to catch 

 my approaching footfall. Brutus had seen it too, for 

 nothing ever escaped his notice, and had snapped his 

 jaws in anxiety ; so, directing Charlie to the spot, not in 

 a hurried manner, for bad example to dogs is worse than 

 the same to men, as in the first instance the better animal 



