"The Little Villager, who had just come out of his burrow, sat straight up on his hind-quarters, on the top of his hillock, with his forepaws hanging meekly over his breast, and glared all about him to see if any danger was in sight. The big rattler beside the door of the next hillock underwent his careful scrutiny, which convinced him that the reptile had recently made a good meal, and would not be dangerous until he had slept it off. Then he glanced skyward. A great hawk was winging its way up from the southern horizon, almost invisible in the strong, direct glare, but the Little Villager's keen eyes detected it. He barked a warning, and the sharp signal went around from hillock to hillock; and in half a minute all the big, babyish eyes were fixed upon the approach of the skying marauder. Everybody chattered about it shrilly till the hawk was straight over the village. Then suddenly the noise was hushed. The great bird half folded its wings and swooped, the air making a hissing hum in its rigid pinion tips. The swoop was lightning swift, but even swifter was the disappearance of the Little Villager, and of all his neighbors for fifty feet about him. Before the hawk reached earth they had dropped into their burrows. "Checking himself abruptly, the hawk flew on over the tops of the hillocks, making unexpected zigzag rushes to right and left. But wherever he went, there the villagers had vanished, almost as if the wind of his approach had whisked them away. Baffled and indignant, he at last gave up the hope of a dinner of prairie dog, and dropped on a small rattler which was too sluggish from overeating to have noticed that there was any particular excitement in the village. Gripping the reptile in inexorable talons just behind its head, the great bird bit its backbone through, carried it to the nearest hillock, and proceeded to tear it to pieces. Calmly he made his meal, glancing around with eyes glassy hard and fiercely arrogant, while from every burrow in the neighborhood round, innocent heads peered forth, barking insult and defiance. They were willing enough that the rattler should be destroyed, but they wished the hawk to understand that his continued presence in the villages was not desired. Of the two foes, they preferred the rattler, to whose methods of administering fate they had grown so accustomed that they could regard them with something like philosophy, especially where only a neighborhood was concerned. But the hawk's attack was so abrupt and violent as to be upsetting to the nerves of the whole village.