Then there appeared a small brown lizard. It came very rapidly right down the path toward Kate.

"If it comes all the way," thought Kate, "I shall have to jump."

But it did not come all the way, and Kate remained quiet.

For some time no living creatures, except b.u.t.terflies and other insects, showed themselves. Then, all of a sudden, there popped into the middle of the path, not very far from Kate, a real, live rabbit!

It was quite a good-sized rabbit, and Kate trembled from head to foot.

Here was a chance indeed!

To carry home a fat rabbit would be a triumph. She aimed the gun as straight toward the rabbit as she could, having shut the wrong eye several times before she got the matter arranged to her satisfaction.

Then she remembered that she had not c.o.c.ked the gun, and so she had to do that, which, of course, made it necessary for her to aim all over again.

She c.o.c.ked only one hammer, and she did it so gently that it did not frighten the rabbit, although he flirted his ears a little when he heard the "click, click!" Everything was so quiet that he probably thought he heard some insect, probably a young or ignorant cricket that did not know how to chirp properly.

So he sat very still and nibbled at some leaves that were growing by the side of the path. He looked very pretty as he sat there, taking his dainty little bites, and jerking up his head every now and then, as if he were expecting somebody.

"I must wait till he's done eating," thought Kate. "It would be cruel to shoot him now."

Then he stopped nibbling all of a sudden, as if he had just thought of something, and as soon as he remembered what it was, he twisted his head around and began to scratch one of his long ears with his hind foot. He looked so funny doing this that Kate came near laughing but, fortunately, she remembered that that would not do just then.

When he had finished scratching one ear, he seemed to consider the question whether or not he should scratch the other one; but he finally came to the conclusion that he would not. He would rather hop over to the other side of the path and see what was there.

This, of course, made it necessary for Kate to take a new aim at him.

Whatever it was that he found on the other side of the path it grew under the ground, and he stuck his head down as far as he could get it, and bent up his back, as if he were about to try to turn a somersault, or to stand on his head.

"How round and soft he is!" thought Kate. "How I should like to pat him.

I wonder when he'll find whatever it is that he's looking for! What a cunning little tail!"

The cunning little tail was soon clapped flat on the ground, and Mr.

Bunny raised himself up and sat on it. He lifted his nose and his fore-paws in the air and seemed to be smelling something good. His queer little nose wiggled so comically that Kate again came very near bursting out laughing.

"How I would love to have him for a pet!" she said to herself.

After sniffing a short time, the rabbit seemed to come to the conclusion that he was mistaken, after all, and that he did not really smell anything so very good. He seemed disappointed, however, for he lifted up one of his little fore-paws and rubbed it across his eyes. But, perhaps, he was not so very sorry, but only felt like taking a nap, for he stretched himself out as far as he could, and then drew himself up in a bunch, as if he were going to sleep.

"I wish he wouldn't do that," thought Kate, anxiously. "I don't want to shoot him in his sleep."

But Bunny was not asleep. He was thinking. He was trying to make up his mind about something. There was no way of finding out what it was that he was trying to make up his mind about. He might have been wondering why some plants did not grow with their roots uppermost, so that he could get at them without rubbing his little nose in the dirt; or why trees were not good to eat right through trunk and all. Or he might have been trying to determine whether it would be better for him to go over to 'Lijah Ford's garden, and try to get a bite at some cabbage-leaves; or to run down to the field just outside of the woods, where he would very likely meet a certain little girl rabbit that he knew very well.

But whatever it was, he had no sooner made up his mind about it than he gave one big hop and was out of sight in a minute.

"There!" cried Kate. "He's gone!"

"I reckon he thought he'd guv you 'bout chance enough, Miss Kate," said a voice behind her, and turning hurriedly, she saw Uncle Braddock.

"Why, how did you come here?" she exclaimed. "I didn't hear you."

"Reckon not, Miss Kate," said the old man. "You don't s'pose I was a-goin' to frighten away yer game. I seed you a-stoopin' down aimin' at somethin', and I jist creeped along a little at a time to see what it was. Why, what _did_ come over you, Miss Kate, to let that ole har go?

It was the puttiest shot I ever did see."

"Oh! I couldn't fire at the dear little thing while it was eating so prettily," said Kate, letting down the hammer of the gun as easily as she could; "and then he cut up such funny little capers that I came near laughing right out. I couldn't shoot him while he was so happy, and I'm glad I didn't do it at all."

"All right, Miss Kate," said Uncle Braddock, as he started off on his way through the woods; "that may be a werry pious way to go a-huntin'

but it won't bring you in much meat."

When Harry came back from hunting for the bee-tree, which he did not find, he saw Kate walking slowly down the path toward the village, the gun under her arm, with the muzzle carefully pointed toward the ground.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

A MAN IN A BOAT.

On a very pleasant afternoon that fall, a man came down Crooked Creek in a small flat-bottomed boat. He rowed leisurely, as if he had been rowing a long distance and felt a little tired. In one end of the boat was a small trunk.

As this man, who had red hair, and a red face, and large red hands, pulled slowly along the creek, turning his head every now and then to see where he was going, he gradually approached the bridge that crossed the creek near "One-eyed Lewston's" cabin. Just before he reached the bridge, he noticed what seemed to him a curious shadow running in a thin straight line across the water. Resting on his oars, and looking up to see what there was above him to throw such a shadow, he perceived a telegraph wire stretching over the creek, and losing itself to sight in the woods on each side.

A telegraph wire was an ordinary sight to this man, but this particular wire seemed to astonish him greatly.

"What on earth is this?" he asked out loud. But there was no one to answer him, and so, after puzzling his mind for a few minutes, he rowed on.

When that man reached the point in the creek to which he was bound, and, with his trunk on his shoulder, walked up to the house where he used to live, he was still more astonished; for a telegraph wire ran through one corner of the back yard.

Cousin Maria now lived in this house, and George Mason was coming to pay her a visit. His appearance was rather a surprise to her, but still she welcomed him. She was a good soul.

Almost before he asked her how she was, he put the question to her:

"What telegraph line's that?"

So Cousin Maria wiped her hands on her long gingham ap.r.o.n (she had been washing her best set of china), and she sat down and told him all about it.

"You see, George," said she, "that there line was the boys' telegraph line, afore they sold it to the mica people; and when the boys put it up they expected to make a heap of money, which I reckon they didn't do, or else they wouldn't have sold it. But these mica people wanted it, and they lengthened it at both ends, and bought it of the boys--or rather of Harry Loudon, for he was the smartest of the lot, and the real owner of the thing--he and his sister Kate--as far as I could see. And when they stretched the line over to Hetertown, they came to me and told me how the line ran along the road most of the way, but that they could save a lot of time and money (though I don't see how they could save much of a lot of money when, accordin' to all accounts, the whole line didn't cost much, bein' just fastened to pine-trees, trimmed off, and if it had cost much, them boys couldn't have built it, for I reckon the mica people didn't help 'em a great deal, after all) if I would let them cut across my grounds with their wire, and I hadn't no objection, anyway, for the line didn't do no harm up there in the air, and so I said certainly they might, and they did, and there it is."

When George Mason heard all this, he walked out of the back-door and over to the wood-pile, where he got an axe and cut down the pole that was in Cousin Maria's back yard. And when the pole fell, it broke the wire, just as Mr. Martin had got to the sixth word of a message he was sending over to Hetertown.

Cousin Maria was outraged.

"George Mason!" said she, "you can stay here as long as you like, and you can have part of whatever I've got in the house to eat, but I'll never sit down to the table with you till you've mended that wire and nailed it to another pole."

"All right," answered George Mason. "Then I'll eat alone."

When Mr. Martin and the mica-mine people and the Akeville people and Harry and Kate and all the boys and everybody black and white heard what had happened, there was great excitement. It was generally agreed that something must be done with George Mason. He had no more right to cut down that pole because he had once lived on the place, than he had to go and cut down any of the neighbors' beanpoles.

So the sheriff and some deputy sheriffs, (Tony Kirk among them), and a constable and a number of volunteer constables, went off after George Mason, to bring him to justice.