Next summer was a wonderful year for the Jack-rabbits. A foolish law
had set a bounty on Hawks and Owls and had caused a general massacre of
these feathered policemen. Consequently the Rabbits had multiplied in
such numbers that they now were threatening to devastate the country.
The farmers, who were the sufferers from the bounty law, as well as the
makers of it, decided on a great Rabbit drive. All the county was
invited to come, on a given morning, to the main road north of the
county, with the intention of sweeping the whole region up-wind and at
length driving the Rabbits into a huge corral of close wire netting.
Dogs were barred as unmanageable, and guns as dangerous in a crowd; but
every man and boy carried a couple of long sticks and a bag full of
stones. Women came on horseback and in buggies; many carried rattles or
horns and tins to make a noise. A number of the buggies trailed a
string of old cans or tied laths to scrape on the wheel-spokes, and
thus add no little to the deafening clatter of the drive. As Rabbits
have marvellously sensitive hearing, a noise that is distracting to
mankind, is likely to prove bewildering to them.
The weather was right, and at eight in the morning the word to advance
was given. The line was about five miles long at first, and there was a
man or a boy every thirty or forty yards. The buggies and riders kept
perforce almost entirely to the roads; but the beaters were supposed,
as a point of honor, to face everything, and keep the front unbroken.
The advance was roughly in three sides of a square. Each man made as
much noise as he could, and threshed every bush in his path. A number
of Rabbits hopped out. Some made for the lines, to be at once assailed
by a shower of stones that laid many of them low. One or two did get
through and escaped, but the majority were swept before the drive. At
first the number seen was small, but before three miles were covered
the Rabbits were running ahead in every direction. After five
miles--and that took about three hours--the word for the wings to close
in was given. The space between the men was shortened up till they were
less than ten feet apart, and the whole drive converged on the corral
with its two long guide wings or fences; the end lines joined these
wings, and the surround was complete. The drivers marched rapidly now;
scores of the Rabbits were killed as they ran too near the beaters.
Their bodies strewed the ground, but the swarms seemed to increase; and
in the final move, before the victims were cooped up in the corral, the
two-acre space surrounded was a whirling throng of skurrying, jumping,
bounding Rabbits. Round and round they circled and leaped, looking for
a chance to escape; but the inexorable crowd grew thicker as the ring
grew steadily smaller, and the whole swarm was forced along the chute
into the tight corral, some to squat stupidly in the middle, some to
race round the outer wall, some to seek hiding in corners or under each
other.
And the Little Warhorse--where was he in all this? The drive had swept
him along, and he had been one of the first to enter the corral. But a
curious plan of selection had been established. The pen was to be a
death-trap for the Rabbits, except the best, the soundest. And many
were there that were unsound; those that think of all wild animals as
pure and perfect things, would have been shocked to see how many halt,
maimed, and diseased there were in that pen of four thousand or five
thousand Jack-rabbits.
It was a Roman victory--the rabble of prisoners was to be butchered.
The choicest were to be reserved for the arena. The arena? Yes, that is
the Coursing Park.
In that corral trap, prepared beforehand for the Rabbits, were a number
of small boxes along the wall, a whole series of them, five hundred at
least, each large enough to hold one Jack.
In the last rush of driving, the swiftest Jacks got first to the pen.
Some were swift and silly; when once inside they rushed wildly round
and round. Some were swift and wise; they quickly sought the hiding
afforded by the little boxes; all of these were now full. Thus five
hundred of the swiftest and wisest had been selected, in, not by any
means an infallible way, but the simplest and readiest. These five
hundred were destined to be coursed by Greyhounds. The surging mass of
over four thousand were ruthlessly given to slaughter.
Five hundred little boxes with five hundred bright-eyed Jack-rabbits
were put on the train that day, and among them was Little Jack Warhorse.
V
Rabbits take their troubles lightly, and it is not to be supposed that
any great terror was felt by the boxed Jacks, once the uproar of the
massacre was over; and when they reached the Coursing Park near the
great city and were turned out one by one, very gently,--yes, gently;
the Roman guards were careful of their prisoners, being responsible for
them,--the Jacks found little to complain of, a big inclosure with
plenty of good food, and no enemies to annoy them.
The very next morning their training began. A score of hatchways were
opened into a much larger field--the Park. After a number of Jacks had
wandered out through these doors a rabble of boys appeared and drove
them back, pursuing them noisily until all were again in the smaller
field, called the Haven. A few days of this taught the Jack-rabbits
that when pursued their safety was to get back by one of the hatches
into the Haven.
Now the second lesson began. The whole band were driven out of a side
door into a long lane which led around three sides of the Park to
another inclosure at the far end. This was the Starting Pen. Its door
into the arena--that is, the Park--was opened, the Rabbits driven
forth, and then a mob of boys and Dogs in hiding, burst forth and
pursued them across the open. The whole army went bobbing and bounding
away, some of the younger ones soaring in a spy-hop, as a matter of
habit; but low skimming ahead of them all was a gorgeous
black-and-white one; clean-limbed and bright-eyed, he had attracted
attention in the pen, but now in the field he led the band with easy
lope that put him as far ahead of them all as they were ahead of the
rabble of common Dogs.
"Luk at thot, would ye--but ain't he a Little Warhorse?" shouted a
villainous-looking Irish stable-boy, and thus he was named. When
halfway across the course the Jacks remembered the Haven, and all swept
toward it and in like a snow-cloud over the drifts.
This was the second lesson--to lead straight for the Haven as soon as
driven from the Pen. In a week all had learned it, and were ready for
the great opening meet of the Coursing Club.
The Little Warhorse was now well known to the grooms and hangers-on;
his colors usually marked him clearly, and his leadership was in a
measure recognized by the long-eared herd that fled with him. He
figured more or less with the Dogs in the talk and betting of the men.
"Wonder if old Dignam is going to enter Minkie this year?"
"Faix, an' if he does I bet the Little Warhorse will take the gimp out
av her an' her runnin' mate."
"I'll bet three to one that my old Jen will pick the Warhorse up before
he passes the grand stand," growled a dog-man.
"An' it's meself will take thot bet in dollars," said Mickey, "an',
moore than thot, Oi'll put up a hull month's stuff thot there ain't a
dog in the mate thot kin turrn the Warrhorrse oncet on the hull coorse."
So they wrangled and wagered, but each day, as they put the Rabbits
through their paces, there were more of those who believed that they
had found a wonderful runner in the Warhorse, one that would give the
best Greyhounds something that is rarely seen, a straight stern chase
from Start to Grand Stand and Haven.