, slowing down three or four times to reconnoitre in its rear.
After that it ran in a zigzag line, taking four or five jumps in one
track, crossing over into the other with a gigantic leap, at an angle
of not more than thirty degrees to its former direction; then, after
another four or five bounds, crossing back again, and so on. About every
tenth jump was now a high leap for scouting purposes, I should say. It
looked breathless, frantic, and desperate. But it kept it up for several
miles. I am firmly convinced that rabbits distinguish between the man
with a gun and the one without it. This little animal probably knew that
I had no gun. But what was it to do? It was caught on the road with us
bearing down upon it. It knew that it did not stand a chance of getting
even beyond reach of a club if it ventured out into the deep, loose
snow. There might be dogs ahead, but it had to keep on and take that
risk. I pitied the poor thing, but I did not stop. I wished for a
cross-trail to appear, so it would be relieved of its panic; and at last
there came one, too, which it promptly took.

And as if to prove still more strikingly how helpless many of our wild
creatures are in deep snow, the third sight came. We started a prairie
chicken next. It had probably been resting in the snow to the right
side of the trail. It began to run when the horses came close. And in a
sudden panic as it was, it did the most foolish thing it possibly could
do: it struck a line parallel to the trail. Apparently the soft snow in
which it sank prevented it from taking to its wings. It had them lifted,
but it did not even use them in running as most of the members of its
family will do; it ran in little jumps or spurts, trying its level
best to keep ahead. But the horses were faster. They caught up with it,
passed it. And slowly I pulled abreast. Its efforts certainly were as
frantic as those of the rabbit had looked. I could have picked it up
with my hands. Its beak was open with the exertion--the way you see
chickens walking about with open beaks on a swooningly hot summer day I
reached for the whip to lower it in front of the bird and stop it from
this unequal race. It cowered down, and we left it behind...

We had by that time reached the narrow strip of wild land which
separated the English settlements to the south from those of the Russian
Germans to the north. We came to the church, and like everything else it
rushed back to the rear; the school o