e
was no knowing how far he had come, but if he came again the second
night he found that the coyotes had left him very little of his kill.

Nobody ventures to say how infrequently and at what hour the small fry
visit the spring. There are such numbers of them that if each came once
between the last of spring and the first of winter rains, there would
still be water trails. I have seen badgers drinking about the hour when
the light takes on the yellow tinge it has from coming slantwise through
the hills. They find out shallow places, and are loath to wet their
feet. Rats and chipmunks have been observed visiting the spring as late
as nine o'clock mornings.

The larger spermophiles that live near the spring and keep awake to work
all day, come and go at no particular hour, drinking sparingly. At long
intervals on half-lighted days, meadow and field mice steal delicately
along the trail. These visitors are all too small to be watched
carefully at night, but for evidence of their frequent coming there are
the trails that may be traced miles out among the crisping grasses. On
rare nights, in the places where no grass grows between the shrubs, and
the sand silvers whitely to the moon, one sees them whisking to and fro
on innumerable errands of seed gathering, but the chief witnesses of
their presence near the spring are the elf owls. Those burrow-haunting,
speckled fluffs of greediness begin a twilight flitting toward the
spring, feeding as they go on grasshoppers, lizards, and small, swift
creatures, diving into burrows to catch field mice asleep, battling with
chipmunks at their own doors, and getting down in great numbers toward
the long juniper. Now owls do not love water greatly on its own account.
Not to my knowledge have I caught one drinking or bathing, though on
night wanderings across the mesa they flit up from under the horse's
feet along stream borders. Their presence near the spring in great
numbers would indicate the presence of the things they feed upon. All
night the rustle and soft hooting keeps on in the neighborhood of the
spring, with seldom small shrieks of mortal agony. It is clear day
before they have all gotten back to their particular hummocks, and if
one follows cautiously, not to frighten them into some near-by burrow,
it is possible to trail them far up the slope.

The crested quail that troop in the Ceriso are the happiest frequenters
of the water trails. There is no furtiveness about their mor