and now he understood what Ack had 
meant. 
Away up the road floated the merest 
whisper, like the sound of a flying owl. 
Instinctively Josh tensed. The whisper 
grew imperceptibly to a murmur, which 
gained volume so rapidly that ten sec- 
onds later it swelled to a faint, pro- 
longed bark. 
ANDY was bringing the hare 
around. It must be a big one, too, 
decided Josh, for no mere cotton-tail 
would make such a long run, and 
neither would a young hare. 
The barking seemed to 
lower from the sky and 
come crawling under the 
low-hung branches of the 
balsams. Right and left 
gazed Josh, his small fig- 
ure bent forward in what 
he considered the most 
approved attitude, the long 
barrel of the gun threat- 
ening to overbalance him. 
The snow shimmered un- 
certainly before him and 
on either hand the alder 
tangle ran in a dull, gray 
wall. Over his head and be- 
hind him, the fir trees cast 
an impenetrable shadow. 
Far up the trail and 
across it, like a bridge of 
silver, lay a vivid splash 
of moonlight on which 
Josh fastened his atten- 
tion. 
Suddenly, noiseless as a 
vision, there drifted into 
the splash of silver a 
shadow, silent and eerie 
and white as a summer 
cloud crossing the face of 
the moon. For a moment 
it hung there, and then it 
passed into the obscurity 
of the shadow, and Josh 
observed with a sense of 
awe that it was coming 
directly toward him, yet 
the ghostly swiftness of 
the scene had left him powerless. The 
breath came to his lungs in hard, com- 
pressed masses that nearly choked him. 
A wild ululation beyond the belt of 
moonlight brought him to himself. The 
shadow of the rabbit was nearly upon 
him. His gun came to his shoulder with 
a rush and he covered the trail before 
him vaguely. The sudden roar had 
echoed into silence before he could sum- 
mon the courage to look for the rabbit. 
LJP the trail galloped the puppy with 
clownish clumsiness, trying his 
mightiest to imitate the deep bark of 
his ancestors. His nose was close to 
the ground and he was drinking in the 
PROTECTED BY A COAT OF 
blood-hot scent in deep “whuffs” that 
made the snow spray into his eyes. 
And at every other plunge he raised 
his head and from his puckered mouth 
sent his shrill hullaballoo echoing to the 
stars. 
He and Josh reached the dead rabbit 
at the same moment. For an instant 
each stood spell-bound. Then, franti- 
cally, both hurled themselves upon the 
body and, each in his own way, killed it 
a hundred times again. At length the 
boy came to himself and in trembling 
haste, wrenched the mauled carcass 
from the punishing jaws of the puppy 


of the memorable day immediately, and, | 
turning to Hank, the hired hand, he 
said, “You’ll prob’ly be wantin’ to bor- 
rer this here beagle-hound; but I don’t 
reckon I’ll lend him, fer he don’t hunt 
very good except fer me.” 
My First Snow-Shoe Rabbit 
By LOU SMITH 
AD had given me a shotgun for 
D Christmas and after all the 
years that have passed, I re- 
member that gun as well as though it 
was but yesterday that I 
first took it in my hands 
and held 
pride and care with which — 
a twelve-year-old boy han- 
dles his first gun. This ~ 
gun was a twelve gauge 
80-inch hammer gun 
weighing 8 lbs.; it had a | 
14-inch stock, a 8%-inch 
drop, both barrels were 
full choke and those bar- 
rels were what was then a 
popular barrel, genuine 
imported stub swist, and 
the gun was an -A- grade 
Ithaca. You’ll say an 8- 
lb. gun is too heavy for a 
twelve-year-old boy, well, 
maybe it is in these days 
of small-bore light guns 
and twelve bores weighing 
rugged little country boy 
and that 8-lb. gun bothered 
me not at all. 
We lived in the little 
lumber town of Centre 
Lisle, about twenty miles 
north of Binghamton, 
N. Y., and over back of 
Dad’s saw-mill was a big 
piece of woods skirting old 

and held it out of reach. The night re- 
sounded to their shouts as they joined 
in a fantastic war dance. 
EARLY twenty minutes later they 
started for home, Josh shouldering 
the rabbit as if it were a deer and the 
puppy still dancing on behind and mak- 
ing vain attempts to drag it down. 
Josh’s orders for him to heel were as 
frequent as they were unnecessary. 
In that order they entered the house, 
where Josh proudly flung down the 
hare, “which ought to come pretty nigh 
five pounds, I reckon,” said Pa, almost 
as proud as his son. But the latter felt 
forced to deliver the final decisive shot 
WARM THICK FUR, HARES AND 
RABBITS HAVE NO FEAR OF WINTER’S RIGORS 
Dudley Creek for perhaps 
a half mile and there were 
plenty of rabbits in those 
woods, both cotton tails 
and the big white snow- 
shoe or varying hare, he of the reddish 
brown coat in summer which turned to 
white about the time the first snows 
fell. 
It was a still, cold Christmas morn- 
ing forty years ago; the country was 
covered with a fresh snow that hunters 
called a tracking snow. Six o’clock 
was the breakfast hour for all of us, be- 
cause the men folks had to get to work 
in the saw-mill at seven and we children 
always ate breakfast with the grown- 
ups, but right after breakfast and just 
before sunup on this eventful Christ- 
mas day I shouldered my gun, filled my 
pockets with brass shells loaded with 
black powder and started out to get my 
Page 134 
it with all the 

; 

around 7 lbs., but I was a_ 
