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Our horses seemed to know their danger as well as we did. I was just thinking of the serious consequences of a fall, when down came Dick, who was leading just ahead of me with Charley by his side. His horse had put its foot into a prairie-dog's hole. "Are you hurt?" I cried out. "No, no; go on; don't wait for me," he answered. But neither Charley nor I was inclined to do that.
I didn't propose to be left on foot, alone out on the prairie. It was, indeed, a wise precaution that I had taken, for within the next three miles the horse, sure enough, stepped into a prairie-dog's hole, and down he went, throwing me clear over his head.
To my eyes the picture was as beautiful as it was novel. As far as one could see there was no sign of human habitation. It was one vast, untenanted waste, with the touch of infinity the ocean wears. As we began to get into the foothills, one of our equestriennes narrowly escaped a fall. Her horse dropped a foot into a prairie-dog's hole, and came to an abrupt stop.
There I caught a glimpse of a little head with two black eyes, like a prairie-dog's, peering out of a crevice, and I was just in time to see him open his small jaws and say "shink" about as a rusty hinge would pronounce it. I whipped my revolver out of my belt and fired, but the little fellow dodged the bullet and was gone.
But right across their path, by happy chance, there flashed a brown streak ridden by a snowy powder-puff, the visible but evanescent sign for Cottontail Rabbit. The Coyote was not in sight now. The Rabbit was, so the Greyhounds dashed after the Cottontail, who took advantage of a Prairie-dog's hole to seek safety in the bosom of Mother Earth, and the Coyote made good her escape.
Doc Peets tells him himse'f one day he's plumb wrong. "'You-all's nacherally a somber, morose party, says Doc Peets this time, 'an' nothin' jocose or jocund about you. Your disp'sition, Jaybird, don't no more run to jokes than a prairie-dog's." "'Which I would admire to know why not? says Jaybird Bob. "'Well, goes on Doc Peets, 'you thinks too slow too much like a cow in a swamp.
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