50 FARMING IT 



was resolved not to give me an opportunity to 

 maltreat it, and came not forth. 



Finally, I had recourse to water poured down 

 the hole. I was bound to have that animal now 

 dead or alive, and for half an hour poured pail 

 after pail of water down the hole without the slight- 

 est impression. The faster I poured, the faster 

 the water disappeared and the drier the hole 

 seemed. It was evident that the hole was con- 

 nected with some great subterranean lake or cave, 

 and I could n't have filled it by any method short 

 of turning the river through it. 



And so, at my wits' end, I devised the follow- 

 ing scheme. I sawed a hole in a box, arranged 

 an entrance of wire that, like a trap for homing 

 pigeons, allowed a visitor to enter, but prevented 

 a tenant from jumping his board-bill, poked the 

 buckskin into the box, I did not dare to han- 

 dle that savage biter, placed the box near the 

 hole, and then, after stopping up the other hole, 

 left them for the night. 



The next morning I repaired at an unusually 

 early hour to the coop, and, to my unbounded 

 amazement, found that the buckskin had escaped 

 and with its mate had been on a reign of terror, 

 and that three of my best birds lay foully mur- 

 dered. 



My indignation knew no bounds. I thought 

 of poison, of shot-guns, of boiling water, and 



