xt
you meet a Cottontail, and get a photograph.

In July, 1902, I tried it myself. I was camped with a lot of Sioux
Indians on the banks of the Cheyenne River in Dakota. They had their
families with them, and about sundown one of the boys ran into the tepee
for a gun, and then fired into the grass. His little brother gave a
war-whoop that their "pa" might well have been proud of, then rushed
forward and held up a fat Cottontail, kicking her last kick. Another, a
smaller Cottontail, was found not far away, and half a dozen young
redskins armed with sticks crawled up, then suddenly let them fly. Bunny
was hit, knocked over, and before he could recover, a dog had him.

[Illustration]

I had been some distance away. On hearing the uproar I came back toward
my own campfire, and as I did so, my Indian guide pointed to a
Cottontail twenty feet away gazing toward the boys. The guide picked up
a stick of firewood.

The boys saw him, and knowing that another Rabbit was there they came
running. Now I thought they had enough game for supper and did not wish
them to kill poor Molly. But I knew I could not stop them by saying
that, so I said: "Hold on till I make a photo." Some of them understood;
at any rate, my guide did, and all held back as I crawled toward the
Rabbit. She took alarm and was bounding away when I gave a shrill
whistle which turned her into a "frozen" statue. Then I came near and
snapped the camera. The Indian boys now closed in and were going to
throw, but I cried out: "Hold on! not yet; I want another." So I chased
Bunny twenty or thirty yards, then gave another shrill whistle, and got
a fourth snap. Again I had to hold the boys back by "wanting another
picture." Five times I did this, taking five pictures, and all the while
steering Molly toward a great pile of drift logs by the river. I had now
used up all my films.

The boys were getting impatient. So I addressed the Cottontail solemnly
and gently: "Bunny, I have done my best for you. I cannot hold these
little savages any longer. You see that pile of logs over there? Well,
Bunny, you have just five seconds to get into that wood-pile. Now git!"
and I shooed and clapped my hands, and all the young Indians yelled and
hurled their clubs, the dogs came bounding and Molly fairly dusted the
earth.

"Go it, Molly!"

"Go it, dogs!"

"Ki-yi, Injuns!"

The clubs flew and rattled around her, but Molly put in ten feet to the
hop and ten hops to the second (al