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The inhabitants were jackrabbits, or American magpies in sharp black and white livery, forever trying to balance their huge tails against the wind, and yelling in low-magpie their opinion of tourists. She did not desire gardens, then, nor the pettiness of plump terraced hills. She was in the Real West, and it was hers, since she had won to it by her own plodding.
I have been at the ranch when one was never out of sight of jackrabbits, in droves, and again I have been there when one would not see a half dozen in a morning's ride. They recover their numbers fast enough, and the chances are that this "narrow-gauge mule" will be always with us.
I told Pa I thought I could see, though there were rabbit hairs in my eyes, and then I got Pa to get up and mount his horse, and we rode back to town with the gang, while the 5,000 rabbit carcasses were hauled to town in wagons and loaded on the cars. "Where do you send those jackrabbits?" asked Pa of the leader of the slayers, as he watched them loading the rabbits.
"Well," he said, sighing, "I see innovations out there in Montana. The round-up will be different. The Pied Fiddler of Bar-K will stand in the corral and fiddle, and the bossies will come galloping in, two by two and a few jackrabbits!" He laughed. "John, the Amati is yours conditionally. If after one year it is not reclaimed it becomes yours automatically. My wedding present.
There he sat, his shrewd brain alive with conjecture until, at thirty-five yards, the kid emptied both barrels. Thereupon he died, his curiosity as to what a movable brown pyramid might be still unsatisfied. Uncle Jim, the kid, and I had great fun cruising for jackrabbits.
We rode on out into the desert, our ponies skipping expertly through the low brush and gingerly over the alkali crust of the open spaces beneath which might be holes. Jackrabbits by the thousand, literally, hopped away in front of us, spreading in all directions as along the sticks of a fan. They were not particularly afraid, so they loped easily in high-bounding leaps, their ears erect.
This part of the country was too settled for large game, but Billy kept Saxon supplied with squirrels and quail, cottontails and jackrabbits, snipe and wild ducks. And they learned to eat roasted mallard and canvasback in the California style of sixteen minutes in a hot oven.
"I guess we don't dig half so many ditches as the infantry does...an' when we've dug 'em we don't crawl into 'em an' stay there like goddam cottontailed jackrabbits." "You guys don't git near enough to the front...." "Like goddam cottontailed jackrabbits," shouted the pickle-faced engineer again, roaring with laughter. "Ain't that so?" He looked round the room for approval.
That whole eighty acres of yours wouldn't support a family of jackrabbits month. What " "And let those old hens say they drove me off? That Kate Price is the limit. The things she said to me you wouldn't believe. And it all started over my going with little Buck a few times to ride along your fence when you boys were busy. I consider that I had a perfect right to ride where I pleased.
When the neighbors tread on our toes, or when we feel we are beginning to grow rusty for want of something to do, we just turn to and give 'em a thrashing; that's all there is to it. Come, boys, let 'em have it once more, and you'll see 'em run like so many jackrabbits!"
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