MY EARLY FRIENDS. 141
her glory was to be in attendance on the taking down of a
stack in the yard, to sit watching with all her wits about her,
and to pounce on and despatch each rat as it appeared. There
were rabbit warrens in the neighbourhood, not without danger
to the terrier. In her hot pursuit of the rabbits, she would
follow them into their burrows by passages and windings too
narrow for her to turn herself in, while the sandy soil fell
down behind her, and she was detained till her absence was
remarked. The dog's half-suffocated yelps indicated her
subterranean place of imprisonment, when aid was speedily
lent to restore her to the upper world.
 On other occasions Skatta's feet were caught in the traps
set by the rabbit-catchers, and though her bones were strong
enough to resist the pressure, and she was not maimed, as so
many of our cats became, but generally freed herself after
a struggle, and returned home triumphantly without much
injury, in two instances she was a serious sufferer from the
accident. In the first it was not known that she had been
caught in a trap, and nobody guessed why she paid such
sedulous attention to one of her front paws, till after an
interval of weeks, in the face of an impending lameness, a
close examination detected a portion of brass-wire bound
tightly round, and eating into the festering flesh. At a much
later date, when Skatta was an old dog, her master missed
her from his heel after crossing one of these warrens. It was a
dark night, and he could not stay to search for her, even if it
had been possible to find her. He trusted that, if she had
been caught in a trap, she would free herself, as she had been
wont to do, and follow on his steps. As she remained absent,
however, the entire night-an unexampled incident in her his-