e it. He didn't know, of course, that the final lacrosse
match of the season was going to be played that afternoon. Johnny had
just gone into one of the cattle sheds to see what was there, when a
little boy, with flopped-out ears and a Cow Brand Soda cap on,
stealthily closed the gate. Johnny didn't know he had on a Cow Brand
Soda cap, and he didn't know that the gate was shut, but he did know
that that kind of a yell meant business. He wasn't afraid. Pshaw! He'd
give young Mr. Flop-Ears a run for his money. Come on, kid--r-r-r-r-r!
Johnny ran straight to the gate with a rabbit's unerring instinct, and
hurled himself against it in vain. The flop-eared boy screamed with
laughter. Then there were more Boys. And Dogs. All screaming. The
primitive savage in them was awake now. Here was a wild thing who
defied them, with all his speed. Johnny was running now with his ears
laid back, mad with terror, dogs barking, boys screaming, even men
joining in the chase, for the lust for blood was on them. Again Johnny
made the circuit of the field--the noise grew--a hundred voices, it
seemed, not one that was friendly. It was one little throbbing rabbit
against the field, with all the odds against him, running for his life,
and losing! "Sic him, Togo! Sic him, Collie! Gee! Can't he run? But
we've got him this time. He'll soon slow up." A dog snapped at him and
his hind leg grew heavy. Some one struck at him with a lacrosse stick,
and then--

He found himself running alone. Behind him a dog yelped with pain, and
above the noise someone shouted: "Here, you kids, let up on that! Shame
on you! Let him alone! Call off your dogs, there! Poor little duffer,
let him go. Get back there, Twin!"

Johnny ran dazed and dizzy, and once more made the circuit and dashed
again for the gate. But this time the gate was open, and Johnny was
free! Saved, and by whom?

Well, of course, old Mrs. Rabbit didn't believe a word of it when
Johnny went home and told her who called off the dogs and opened the
gate for him. She said,--well, she talked very plainly to Johnny, but
he stuck to it, that he owed his life to one of the Bad Men who wear
clothes the color of grass, and whose gun spits fire and death. For old
Mrs. Rabbit made just the same mistake that many people make of
thinking that a man that hunts must be cruel, forgetting that the true
sportsman loves the wild things he makes war on, and though he kills
them, he does it fairly and openly.

T