id of each other, and no one, as far as I knows, has ever
seen a prairie dog fifty yards away from his town. The rummest thing
about them is as every town has got its well. The prairie-dogs have all
got their holes, and though you may see 'em going about popping in and
out of each other's houses, I fancy as they always keep to their own.
But there's one hole which they all use, and that goes down to the
water. No matter how deep it is, they takes it down; I fancy the whole
lot digs at it by turns till they get there. You will see thar towns are
always on lowish ground, so that they can get down to water all the
sooner; that's why they build up those mounds round each hole."

"I thought it was just the earth they had thrown out, Abe."

"So it is, partly; but it serves to keep the water out in the wet season
too. If you watch 'em you can see 'em building the earth up and patting
it down hard if it gets broken down. Sometimes, in very wet weather,
thar will be a flood, and then the whole lot, dogs and owls and snakes,
get drowned all together. Mighty nasty places they are, I tell yer, when
they are desarted. At other times you can see 'em plain enough, and can
ride through 'em at a gallop, for the horses are accustomed to pick
thar way; but after a year or two, when the grass grows again, and is
breast high in summer, and you come across one of them, the first you
know about it is the horse puts his foot in a hole, and you are flying
through the air. Many a fall have I had from them darned little things."

"Are they good eating, Abe?"

"Yes, they ain't bad eating; and if you lie down quiet, and shoot
straight, you ain't long in making a bag. But you have got to kill 'em
to get 'em; if you don't put your bullet through thar head, they just
chucks themselves straight down the hole, and it would take an hour's
digging, and it may be more, to get at 'em."

"There seems to be a tremendous lot of rattlesnakes in some places,
Abe."

"Thar are that, lad; I have seen places where you might kill a hundred
in an hour with your Colt. Thar are two sorts, them as you finds on the
plains and them as you finds among rocks; one are twice as big as the
other, but thar ain't much difference in thar bite."

"Is it always fatal, Abe?"

"Not often, lad, either to man or horse, though I have known horses die
when they have been bit in the head when they have been grazing. The
best thing is to tie a bandage tightly above the place, and to