exposed to before.
Dr. Dirkson from
the Public Health Department...
...sent it over this morning.
- Would you get me a clean rabbit?
- Oh, yeah.
I wish I knew what the effects
of this serum would be.
Let's hope it works.
Not that one, Mommy.
It's my favorite.
Apparently, this is the villain...
...in certain birth defects.
Causes hereditary changes.
- Will it transmit to other rabbits?
- Well, I should hope so.
It's difficult to inject
10 to 15,000 wild rabbits.
Right.
Now, this substance...
...if we could affect
the blood of 50 rabbits...
...it wouldn't take long for this change
to take place in the entire population.
Hello, Cole.
No. Not yet. I'm sorry.
Just a minute.
Gerry.
Yes, Cole.
We're trying a new serum.
We hope to inject 50 or so rabbits.
If it works on them, it wouldn't take long
before it would infect thousands.
Yeah. Sure.
Yeah?
Cole says the rabbits
are getting meaner and hungrier.
We could use another dozen here.
He's got them ready to go.
Would you mind
picking them up for me?
Of course not.
Thanks, honey.
You see, Cole, we have to keep
a tight control on these test rabbits.
Heaven help us if any of them
should get away...
...before we know
the effects of this new serum.
Sure, Cole.
Gerry will be by this afternoon.
Fine, Cole. I'll talk to you later.
- I'll take Amanda with me.
- Good.
Amanda, would you please leave
those rabbits alone?
You said I could have one.
Can I? Before you kill them?
- One from the control group?
- Well, all right.
She seems to be the only one
that gets along with them.
Thank you, Daddy.
Rub his foot while you're at it, honey,
and see what kind of luck that brings us.
As a matter of fact,
rub all four of them.
The damn rabbits.
Pardon me, ma'am.
- The rabbits are getting pushier and meaner.
- Every day.
- Romeo's not a bad rabbit.
- I don't care.
Get him out of here
or I won't be your friend.
I won't do it.
Get! Those darn rabbits
killed my chickens.
I'm sorry, Amanda.
Don't tell my mom he ran away.
Okay. You can say
I'm keeping him for you.
- Come on.
- Okay.
Since the injection,
this rabbit has increased in size.
If it keeps up,
we'll have to get larger cages.
One more week
and these won't be babies anymore.
Neither will the ones
up at Cole Hillman's.
The young will be coming out
of their holes...
...any day and starting
their new generations.
Well, I guess you ought to call Cole.
If he's gonna poison those fields,
he'd better do it now.
I'm going to warn him.
If he poisons the rabbits,
he's going to kill off all the other animals.
And it won't be long, he'll have nothing
left but unredeemable wasteland.
Well...
If this don't work, Cole, I swear
I'll send my planes over your land.
This is the place to spray,
the place to stop them.
In two months from now...
...everything north of here
will be eaten out.
In the meantime, there'll be
a burned-out strip nearly a mile wide.
Between my property
and everything south...
...there won't be a bush, a blade of grass
or a drop of water.
All right, Frank, when you and Jud...
I still think poisoning's
the better way to do it.
Yeah. Well, say thank you instead.
Cole here is sacrificing his land
to starve them out natural.
Any help you need replanting
or anything, you call on me.
I appreciate that, Arlen.
Any time you're ready, light it.
Sure hope it works.
Oh, Roy, this was the first rangeland
to get eaten clean.
So I figure it might be
the first one to come back.
Instinctively, that's what they do.
They'll come right back here.
Roy.
What kind of a track is that?
I don't know.
I've never seen anything like that before.
How about you, Cole?
I don't know.
Got a couple of cow tracks in it.
From the size of that imprint,
the depth of it...
...I’d say it was...
Weighed maybe 100, 150 pounds.
Could it be a mountain lion?
Well, it could be, but we haven't had
any of those around here in a long time.
Getting tired?