tail.  But in the alfalfa fields was a chance, for it must be remembered that such fields were surrounded by the rabbit-proof wire in which but a single opening was known to the jack in question.  Therefore, with huge delight, the dogs gave chase.  Mr. Rabbit bolted back for his opening, his enemies fairly at his heels.  Now comes the curious part of the episode.  The dogs knew perfectly well that if the rabbit hit the hole in the fence he was safe for all of them; and they had learned, further, that if the rabbit missed his plunge for safety he would collide strongly with that tight-strung wire.  When within twenty feet or so of the fence they stopped short in expectation.  Probably three times out of five the game made his plunge in safety and scudded away over the open plain outside.  Then the dogs turned and trotted philosophically back to the ranch.  But the other two times the rabbit would miss.  At full speed he would hit the tight-strung mesh, only to be hurled back by its resiliency fairly into the jaws of his waiting pursuers.  Though thousands may consider this another nature-fake, I shall always have the comfort of thinking that the Captain and the dogs know it for the truth.

At times jackrabbits get some sort of a plague and die in great numbers.  Indeed some years at the ranch they seemed almost to have disappeared.  Their carcasses are destroyed almost immediately by the carrion creatures, and their delicate bones, scattered by the ravens, buzzards, and coyotes, soon disintegrate and pass into the soil.  One does not find many evidences of the destruction that has been at work; yet he will see tens instead of myriads.  I have been at the ranch when one was never out of sight of jackrabbits, in droves, and again I have been there when one would not see a half dozen in a morning’s ride.  They recover their numbers fast enough, and the chances are that this “narrow-gauge mule” will be always with us.  The ranchman would like nothing better than to bid him a last fond but genuine farewell; but I should certainly miss him.

The greasewood and thorn-bush grew in long, narrow patches.  The ragweed grew everywhere it pleased, affording grand cover for the quail.  The sagebrush occurred singly at spaced intervals, with tiny bare spaces between across which the plumed little rascals scurried hurriedly.  The tumbleweed banked high wherever, in the mysterious dispensations of Providence, a call for tumbleweed had made itself heard.

The tumbleweed is a curious vegetable.  It grows and flourishes amain, and becomes great even as a sagebrush, and puts forth its blossoms and seeds, and finally turns brown and brittle.  Just about as you would conclude it has reached a respectable old age and should settle down by its chimney corner, it decides to go travelling.  The first breath of wind that comes along snaps it off close to the ground.  The next turns it over.  And then, inasmuch as the tumbleweed is roughly globular in