THE LUCK OF THE GAME 169 



a fair course, and can see ahead ; and it is almost 

 impossible to run down a rabbit that sets its face 



from the corn to some other known shelter, 

 The unless the distance is very great. In olden 



of th days, when the corn was not tied as it was 

 Game cut, but was thrown out loosely by the rakes 



of the reaper, then the chances of escape 

 were all against the rabbit. He could not run through 

 the corn, or jump over it, nor could he even see where 

 he was going. All that the harvester had to do was 

 to hurl himself on the corn where he suspected the 

 rabbit to lurk, and pin it down. Sometimes, while he 

 was feeling for the rabbit, it would bolt unseen through 

 his legs, to fall an easy prey to another harvester, 

 perhaps some fat old dame who had never been 

 known to run. The sport is full of luck. A man may 

 run until he and the rabbit are at the point of ex- 

 haustion ; the man falls, but the rabbit struggles 

 on for a yard or two farther, and another catches the 

 prize. We have known a man, in falling exhausted, 

 to actually fall on the rabbit he was chasing. Once 

 let a rabbit get clear away from the standing corn, 

 the speediest runner can do no more than keep an 

 eye on its bobbing tail during the first hundred yards 

 of its dash for freedom. But by ruthlessly following 

 the tail, in a large field a man may walk it down ; 

 for a rabbit will soon run itself to a standstill, or in 

 despair will creep to hide beneath the cut corn. The 

 rabbit is faint-hearted ; if he once loses his bearings, 



