WHITE-JACK AND COMPANIONS 



farmer and his sweetheart. They came from all 

 directions, over the hills or up the ravines, to- 

 ward the school-house. Each waved a greeting 

 to the popular and much-loved teacher as they 

 caught sight of her in the distance, dressed in a 

 steel-gray velvet riding-habit. 



By eight o'clock all had arrived. The grey- 

 hounds and other dogs, twelve in all, were called 

 together by their masters. The course to be 

 pursued was decided upon. Then the entire 

 party of thirty mounted hunters, some carrying 

 fire-arms and the others supplied with heavy 

 sticks or big black-snake whips, started across 

 the prairie, the teacher in the lead. 



The first mile was passed without seeing a 

 single jack-rabbit. The hunters and dogs then 

 scattered over some half mile of level prairie 

 covered with low bunch-grass in the hope of 

 scaring up the "jacks." The white-tailed jack- 

 rabbit is the vagabond of the plains, never having 

 any real home. He squats beneath a bush, tuft 

 of grass, or clump of weeds, which serve for 

 food as well as his only home. In sunshine or 

 in rain, in cold or in heat, there he sits, always 

 on the alert for danger, with no other protection 



