So it gets the prairie dogs to let it live in their big, comfortable burrows; and in return for this hospitality it kills and eats some of the rattlesnakes, the very small ones, I suppose, of course, which come round among the burrows looking for the young prairie dogs.

Well, you know, Uncle Andy, Bill has been out West himself, and he's seen the villages of the prairie dogs, and the little owls sitting on the tops of the hillocks which are on the roofs of the prairie dogs' houses, and the rattlesnakes coiled up here and there in the hot, sunny hollows.

There were lots and lots of the prairie dogs, millions and millions of them, Bill said." "There'd have been still more if it hadn't been for the little owls," said Uncle Andy with a grin.

But seeing a grieved look on the Child's face, and remembering that he himself was none too fond of having his narratives broken in upon, he hastened to add politely, but pointedly, "I beg your pardon for interrupting.

Please go on!" "Well, as I was going to say," continued the Child, in quite his Uncle's manner, "Bill saw--he saw them himself, with his own eyes--these millions and thousands of prairie dogs, and quite a lot of the little owls, and only just a very few of the rattlesnakes.