ocked to one side to keep to the left or
right of such and such a promontory.

I have trailed a coyote often, going across country, perhaps to where
some slant-winged scavenger hanging in the air signaled prospect of
a dinner, and found his track such as a man, a very intelligent man
accustomed to a hill country, and a little cautious, would make to the
same point. Here a detour to avoid a stretch of too little cover, there
a pause on the rim of a gully to pick the better way,--and it is usually
the best way,--and making his point with the greatest economy of effort.
Since the time of Seyavi the deer have shifted their feeding ground
across the valley at the beginning of deep snows, by way of the Black
Rock, fording the river at Charley's Butte, and making straight for the
mouth of the canon that is the easiest going to the winter pastures on
Waban. So they still cross, though whatever trail they had has been long
broken by ploughed ground; but from the mouth of Tinpah Creek, where
the deer come out of the Sierras, it is easily seen that the creek, the
point of Black Rock, and Charley's Butte are in line with the wide bulk
of shade that is the foot of Waban Pass. And along with this the deer
have learned that Charley's Butte is almost the only possible ford,
and all the shortest crossing of the valley. It seems that the wild
creatures have learned all that is important to their way of life
except the changes of the moon. I have seen some prowling fox or coyote,
surprised by its sudden rising from behind the mountain wall, slink in
its increasing glow, watch it furtively from the cover of near-by brush,
unprepared and half uncertain of its identity until it rode clear of the
peaks, and finally make off with all the air of one caught napping by an
ancient joke. The moon in its wanderings must be a sort of exasperation
to cunning beasts, likely to spoil by untimely risings some fore-planned
mischief.

But to take the trail again; the coyotes that are astir in the Ceriso of
late afternoons, harrying the rabbits from their shallow forms, and the
hawks that sweep and swing above them, are not there from any mechanical
promptings of instinct, but because they know of old experience that the
small fry are about to take to seed gathering and the water trails. The
rabbits begin it, taking the trail with long, light leaps, one eye and
ear cocked to the hills from whence a coyote might descend upon them at
any moment. Rabbits are