was fun in that, but Pen was up first.
"Is your dress caught, Susie? – Vosh, help Susie: she's caught on a splinter."
"I'll help her."
"No, you needn't. There, it isn't torn much. – Now, Pen, do you think the oxen can pull such a load as this?"
"Of course they can."
In a minute or so more, Susie began to have new ideas about the management of oxen, and how strong they were, and how wonderfully willing. They seemed to know exactly what to do, with a little help from Vosh and his long whip. When all was ready, and they bowed their horns, and strained against their yokes with their powerful necks, it seemed as if they could have moved any thing in the world.
One long strain, a creaking sound, and then a sudden giving-way and starting, and the snow began to crunch, crunch, beneath the wide, smooth runners of the sleigh. Vosh walked beside his team, and drove it away around in a semicircle, carefully avoiding trees and stumps, until he and his load were once more in the road, and on their way home.
"Hark!" exclaimed Susie just then. "Was that the report of a gun, or was it the sound of another tree falling?"
"Guess it was a gun," said Vosh. "It's one of the boys shooting at something. Plenty of game, if they can hit it."
If they had been listening with any kind of attention, they might have heard a similar sound before, although the place where the boys were was at some distance from what Vosh called "the clearing."
Corry and Porter had pushed on after Ponto as best they could; but he had not stirred up for them any game in the thick, gloomy forest.
"No rabbits here," said Porter.
"Sometimes there are a few," said Corry; "but this isn't the place. We're most there now: we'd better load up."
"The guns, – aren't they loaded?"
"No. We never leave a charge in. Father says a gun's always safe when it's empty."
Corry put the butt of his gun on the ground while he spoke, and Porter watched him narrowly.
"That's his powder-flask," he said to himself. "I might have known that much. The powder goes in first: of course it does."
He had never loaded a gun in all his life, and his experience with the axe had made him feel a little cautious. Still he tried to make quick work of it; and, when Corry began to push down a wad of paper after the powder, his city cousin did the same thing, only he was a little behindhand, and he put in a much bigger wad of paper.
"How he does ram it! So will I," Porter remarked.
"Don't put too many shot into that gun. I'll measure 'em for you. You'll know next time. It scatters too much if you overcharge it."
Porter was wondering at that very moment how many shot he had better put in, or whether he should try the big shot from one side of his shot-pouch, or the smaller shot from the other.
"What are the big ones for?" he asked, when he saw Corry choose the smaller size.
"Buckshot? Oh! you can kill almost any thing with buckshot, – deer, or even bear."
"Can you? I never used 'em. Thought they were big for rabbits."
He was glad to know his gun was correctly loaded, however; and he imitated Corry in putting on the caps for both barrels, as if he had served a long apprenticeship at that very business.
"We haven't reached the swamp yet, have we?"
"No, but we have a'most. It's a great place for rabbits, when you get there. Halloo! Ponto's started one! Come on, Port!"
They did not really need to stir a foot, for the swift little animal the dog had disturbed from his seat among the bushes was running his best right toward them.
"There he is!" shouted Porter.
"Try him, Port."
"No, you try him."
Corry's gun was at his shoulder, and in another second the bright flash leaped from the muzzle.
"Did you hit him? He didn't stop running: he kept right on."
"Missed him, I guess. Too many trees, and it was a pretty long shot."
"Why, it didn't seem far."
"Didn't it? That's 'cause it was over the snow: it was more'n ten rods. Hark! hear Ponto!"
The old dog was barking as if for dear life, and the boys ran as fast as the snow would let them. They had not far to go before they could see Ponto dancing around the foot of a huge beech-tree.
"If he hasn't treed him!"
"Treed a rabbit! Why, do you mean they can climb?"
"Climb! Rabbits climb! I guess not. But that tree's hollow. See that hole at the bottom? The rabbit's in there, sure."
"Can we get him?"
"We'll try, but it won't pay if it takes too long, – just one rabbit."
Porter Hudson had a feeling that it would be worth almost any thing in the world to catch that rabbit. He hardly knew how to go to work for it; but he felt very warm indeed while his cousin stooped down and poked his arm deeper and deeper into the hole in the tree. It did not go down, but up; and it was a pretty big one at its outer opening.
"Is it a hollow tree, Corry?"
"Guess not, only a little way up."
"Can you feel him?"
"Arm isn't long enough."
Ponto whimpered, very much as if he understood what his master was saying. That was probably not the first runaway game which had disappointed him by getting into a den of safety of one kind or another.
"Hey, Port! Here he comes!"
"Got him, have you?"
"There he is."
Corry withdrew his arm as he spoke, and held up in triumph a very large, fat, white rabbit.
"You did reach him."
"No, I didn't. Some of my shot had hit him, and he came down the hole of his own weight. Don't you see? They didn't strike him in the right place to tumble him right over: he could run."
"Poor fellow!" said Porter: "he won't run any more now."
It was of small use to pity that rabbit, when the one thought uppermost in his mind was that he could not go home happy unless he could carry with him another of the same sort, and of his own shooting.
Corry loaded his gun again, and on they went; but pretty soon he remarked, —
"We're in the swamp now, Port."
"I don't see any swamp: it's all trees and bushes and snow."
"That's so, but there's ice under the snow in some places. You can't get through here at all in the spring, and hardly in summer.
