why. Mr. Man with many brothers and sisters lives in your home. Mr. Man has a gun and he uses that gun to kill poor little rabbits like me. Don't you remember eating some for dinner yesterday? Well, on that day several of our dear little playfellows were killed. Now you see I don't care to be eaten, so must not go near your home, even to show you the way."

Mary gave a little shudder, for she did remember eating rabbit for dinner the day before and that she liked it, too; but she made a resolve never to do so again.

"But I'll not desert you for all that," continued the strange friend. "My home is close by and as you are but a wee bit of a girl and have no gun, I'll take you there."

Mary was delighted. To visit a real rabbit village and to be taken there by Mrs. Rabbit, herself, would be a strange adventure, indeed.

Mrs. Rabbit led the way down a narrow path worn by the little feet of her numerous family. Mary trotted along behind when suddenly the rabbit stood up, gave a jump and darted away into the bushes.

Mary, startled, looked up in surprise. There stood cousin Jack gazing down at her with an amused twinkle in his eyes; why! she, herself, was lying, her head pillowed on her chubby arms, directly under the shady tree where she had thrown herself in despair but a few moments before.

"Well, little girl, what have you been dreaming about?" he asked. "Mother is sure you are lost or eaten up by some of your wild friends."

At this, Mary stood up and looked around indignantly. "Did I really dream about all those dreadful things Mrs. Cottontail told me?" she said.

RABBITS AND CACTUS BURRS

You city children and even you country boys and girls would never dream of all the delightful and interesting things they found. I suppose you think of the desert as being a flat stretch of sand with nothing on it, like the maps of the desert of Sahara, in Africa? I know I used to. But indeed it is not so. Many strange forms of life exist, both plant and animal, as we shall soon learn.

This particular morning as they started out, Mary noticed that the ground was covered with cactus burrs. Did you ever see a cactus burr? They are similar to those you find in the country, but larger, with pointed daggers sticking out in all directions, and they grow on a crooked, prickly stalk or spine in the most comical way imaginable. As they ambled along they discovered more and yet more of them. Mary, being an inquisitive child, jumped down from Bepo's back for a closer inspection of the strange things. Then she discovered a queer thing. She had seen lots of burrs before but these were different. All the sharp daggers had been removed, the burrs had been split open and the soft centers taken out.

Mary looked all around, who could have done it? No man could have opened all those burrs, it would have taken him weeks. He would have pricked his fingers many times and often besides.

Then she heard a faint rustling in the bushes near by. Softly she tiptoed behind a clump of sagebrush and peeked over. There was a little rabbit nibbling away at a cactus burr. He handled it very carefully to guard against pricks and very daintily nibbled off, one by one, the tiny daggers. When all were gone he split open the burr, sucked out the juice, then nibbled up the soft center. So you see, even on this sandy desert, Nature cares for all her children.

Mary was so pleased at the sight that she clapped her little hands in glee and cried, "You dear, cute little thing!" But Mr. Rabbit was not used to little girls. He looked up suddenly with fright in his tiny pink eyes, then sprang away into the bushes.

Mary led Bepo around to a rock and clambered onto his back. As they slowly stubbed along over the rough trail they surprised many a family of rabbits and not a few were nibbling away at the prickly cactus burrs.

You can ride for miles over the desert without finding water, no lakes, no rivers, no little stream even; and if it were not for the sweet juices in the center of these burrs many small animals would die of thirst.

Twilight on the Desert

THE DANGEROUS PET

At the end of that month big Ben, the foreman, came into Mary's tent to repair the floor. The first Mary knew that anything was wrong was when he gave a scream, calling to her to keep away from the tent. Her father, nearby, ran to see what was the trouble; Ben pointed to the big lizard and cried, "A gila monster, let us kill him quickly!" Mary and her parents looked at him in surprise. They had never heard of such an animal. Ben, however, had spent years on the desert and knew well its dangers. But he had no gun and all he could do was to take a stick and push the thing out of doors. Then a queer thing happened. When the hot sun shone down on the gila monster (pronounced heela) it was no longer tame and gentle, but would snap at anyone who came near and acted ugly, continuing to hiss with his mouth wide open, on the lookout for the first sign of an enemy.

A squirrel came out of the brush and ran a bit too near, when the big lizard fastened its fangs in the poor little animal and turned over with it in its mouth. The poison is in its lower jaw and when he turns over it flows out. The squirrel died in a very few moments from the effects of the poison in spite of the fact that Ben had meantime shot the gila monster