It was long before Ben Blair spoke.  He scarcely stirred in his seat; then of a sudden, rousing, he threw his leg back over the saddle.

“No,” he said slowly, “I don’t wonder—­looking at things your way.  It’s all in the point of view.  But perhaps yours is wrong, maybe you don’t think of the other side of that life.  There usually is another side to everything, I’ve noticed.”  He glanced ahead.  A half-mile on, the blackboard had stopped, and Scotty was standing up on the seat and motioning the laggards energetically.

“I think we’d better dust up a little.  Your father seems to have struck something interesting.”

Florence seemed inclined to linger, but Scotty’s waving cap was insistent, and they galloped ahead.

They found Rankin sitting upon the wagon seat, smoking impassively as usual; but the Englishman was upon the ground holding the two hounds by the collars.  Behind the big compound lenses his eyes were twinkling excitedly, and he was smiling like a boy.

“Look out there!” he exclaimed with a jerk of his head, “over to the west.  We all but missed him!  Are you ready?”

They all looked and saw, perhaps thirty rods away, a grayish-white jack-rabbit, distinct by contrast with the brown earth.  The hounds had also caught sight of the game and pulled lustily at their collars.

Instantly Florence was all excitement.  “Of course we’re ready!  No, wait a second, until I see about my saddle.”  She dismounted precipitately.  “Tighten the cinch a bit, won’t you, Ben?  I don’t mind a tumble, but it might interfere at a critical moment.”  She put her foot in his extended hand, and sprang back into her seat.  “Now, I’m ready.  Come on, Ben!  Let them go, papa!  Be in at the finish if you can!” and, a second behind the hounds, she was away.  Simultaneously, the great jack-rabbit, scenting danger, leaped forward, a ball of animate rubber, bounding farther and farther as he got under full motion, speeding away toward the blue distance.

The chase that followed was a thing to live in memory.  From the nature of the land, gently rolling to the horizon without an obstruction the height of a man’s hand, there was no possibility of escape for the quarry.  The outcome was as mathematically certain as a problem in arithmetic; the only uncertain element was that of time.  At first the jack seemed to be gaining, but gradually the greater endurance of the hounds began to count, and foot by foot the gap between pursuers and pursued lessened.  In the beginning the rabbit ran in great leaps, as though glorying in the speed that it would seem no other animal could equal, but very soon his movements changed; his ears were flattened tight to his head, and, with every muscle strained to the utmost, he ran wildly for his life.