s, to hunt him. Those dogs, she
said, went down into the hole after the badger and killed him there in
a terrific struggle underground; you could hear the barks and yelps
outside. Then the dog dragged himself back, covered with bites and
scratches, to be rewarded and petted by his master. She knew a dog who
had a star on his collar for every badger he had killed.

The rabbits were unusually spry that afternoon. They kept starting up
all about us, and dashing off down the draw as if they were playing a
game of some kind. But the little buzzing things that lived in the grass
were all dead--all but one. While we were lying there against the warm
bank, a little insect of the palest, frailest green hopped painfully
out of the buffalo grass and tried to leap into a bunch of bluestem. He
missed it, fell back, and sat with his head sunk between his long legs,
his antennae quivering, as if he were waiting for something to come and
finish him. Tony made a warm nest for him in her hands; talked to him
gaily and indulgently in Bohemian. Presently he began to sing for us--a
thin, rusty little chirp. She held him close to her ear and laughed, but
a moment afterward I saw there were tears in her eyes. She told me that
in her village at home there was an old beggar woman who went about
selling herbs and roots she had dug up in the forest. If you took her
in and gave her a warm place by the fire, she sang old songs to the
children in a cracked voice, like this. Old Hata, she was called, and
the children loved to see her coming and saved their cakes and sweets
for her.

When the bank on the other side of the draw began to throw a narrow
shelf of shadow, we knew we ought to be starting homeward; the chill
came on quickly when the sun got low, and Antonia's dress was thin. What
were we to do with the frail little creature we had lured back to life
by false pretences? I offered my pockets, but Tony shook her head and
carefully put the green insect in her hair, tying her big handkerchief
down loosely over her curls. I said I would go with her until we could
see Squaw Creek, and then turn and run home. We drifted along lazily,
very happy, through the magical light of the late afternoon.

All those fall afternoons were the same, but I never got used to them.
As far as we could see, the miles of copper-red grass were drenched in
sunlight that was stronger and fiercer than at any other time of the
day. The blond cornfields were red gold, the h