WATCHED BY WILD ANIMALS

©1905, by John M. Phillips

The Rocky Mountain Goat

WATCHED BY WILD ANIMALS

BY
ENOS A. MILLS

ILLUSTRATED FROM
PHOTOGRAPHS AND FROM
DRAWINGS BY WILL JAMES

GARDEN CITY, N.Y., AND TORONTO
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1922

COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
COPYRIGHT, 1915, 1917, 1918, 1919, BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
IN THE UNITED STATES AND GREAT BRITAIN
COPYRIGHT, 1920, 1921, BY THE SPRAGUE PUBLISHING COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY SUBURBAN PRESS
COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY FIELD AND STREAM PUBLISHING COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY THE FRANK A. MUNSEY COMPANY
PRINTED AT GARDEN CITY, N. Y., U. S. A.
First Edition

TO
ESTHER and ENDA

PREFACE

In the wilds, moving or standing, I was the observed of all observers. Although the animals did not know I was coming, generally they were watching for me and observed me without showing themselves.

As I sat on a log watching two black bears playing in a woods opening, a faint crack of a stick caused me to look behind. A flock of mountain sheep were watching me only a few steps distant. A little farther away a wildcat sat on a log, also watching me. There probably were other watchers that I did not see.

Animals use instinct and reason and also have curiosity—the desire to know. Many of the more wide-awake species do not run panic-stricken from the sight or the scent of man. When it is safe they linger to watch him. They also go forth seeking him. Their keen, automatic, constant senses detect him afar, and stealthily, sometimes for hours, they stalk, follow and watch him.

In the wilderness the enthusiastic, painstaking and skillful observer will see many wild folks following their daily routine. But, however fortunate he may be, numerous animals will watch him whose presence he never suspects.

Parts of the chapters in this book have appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, the American Boy, Field and Stream, Munsey’s and Countryside. Acknowledgment is hereby made to the editors of these magazines for granting permission to reprint this material.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

WATCHED BY WILD ANIMALS

CHAPTER I
THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN GOAT

As a flock of wild goats wound in and out among the crevasses and crossed the slender ice bridges of a glacier on Mount Rainier they appeared for all the world like a party of skillful mountain climbers.

Not until I had studied them for a few seconds through my field glasses did I realize that they were goats. There were twenty-seven of them, nannies, billies, and kids, strung out in a crooked line, single file. Once safely across this glacier they lingered to look round. The kids played, the old goats had friendly bouts, and one or two couples scratched each other. After a delay of more than an hour they set off round the mountain and I followed.

While crossing another ice slope they were suddenly subjected to a severe bombardment. A number of large rock fragments crashed down the steep slope, bounding, hurtling, and ripping the air with terrific speed. The goats were directly in the path of the flying stones, which for a number of seconds bounded over them and struck among them. A small stone struck an old billy on the shoulder and knocked him sliding for some distance. When he regained his feet his shoulder appeared to be broken. Though making every effort to control himself, he continued to slide and presently tumbled into a crevasse. He caught with his good fore foot on the ice and clung for a second, made one desperate attempt to push himself back and almost succeeded, and then fell into the crevasse and disappeared.

A few of the flock watched him, but most of them stood with their heads up the slope facing the wildly bounding stones. None of them ran; there was no confusion, no panic. It was, perhaps, safer for the goats to stand still, thus presenting the smallest target for the flying stones, than to rush forward or to retreat in the midst of the bombardment, for the rocks were coming down both in front and behind them. At any rate, the goat is a wise fellow, and this flock probably had experienced rock fire before. When it was all over the bearded old leader started forward with the rest again following.

Until recently most goats lived in localities rarely visited either by Indians or by white hunters. As a result, when first shot at they were not excited and were slow to run away. This procrastination of the goat while under fire, together with his supremely crude outlines and slow, awkward actions, led most early hunters and trappers to call him a stupid animal. But he is not at all stupid. Evidence of his alertness and mental development is shown in his curiosity and in his ability to readjust himself promptly to new dangers.

In localities where he was unacquainted with man the goat apparently made no effort to guard against enemies or to use sentinels. But promptly after the coming of hunters and long-range rifles he became extremely wary and sought look-out resting places of safety and had sentinels on duty. He is thoroughly wide-awake at all times. When surprised in close quarters he shows no confusion or panic, and retreats in a masterly manner. If one route of retreat is blocked he starts for another without losing his head. If finally cornered, he makes a stand.

Hunters and dogs cornered an old billy near me in the head of a glacial cirque, in what is now the Glacier National Park. The goat made his stand on slide rock at the bottom of a precipitous wall. He watched for an opportunity to escape, and made one or two himself. The dogs surged round him. He leaped at one, and with a remarkably quick move of head struck and impaled him on his sharp horns; with a twisting upward toss of the head he ripped and flung him to his death. In rapid succession he killed three dogs. The fourth dog was tossed entirely over a precipice. At this the other dogs drew off.

Finding himself free, the goat did a little desperate rock work to gain a ledge, along which he safely climbed. He stepped accurately, and though the ledge was narrow and covered with small stones there was no slipping and only a few stones fell. The goat defied and defeated this pack of dogs so coolly and easily that I could believe, as I had been told, that he is more than a match for a black bear.

I have never heard of a goat showing any symptoms of fright or fear. Fear with him appears to be a lost trait. It is possible that such a trait may have been detrimental to life in the daily dangers of icy summits and through evolution was long ago eliminated. The goat is decidedly philosophical, makes every movement, meets every emergency with matter-of-fact composure. In all times of danger, and even when dying, he retains mastership of his powers. A mother with a kid, retreating and heroically fighting off dogs while doing so, impressed me with goat spirit. At last cornered, she kept up the fight, remaining on her feet after she had been struck by several bullets.

The goat often does not die nor does he surrender for some time after receiving a number of fatal wounds, but fights on with telling effectiveness. I imagine he will absorb as many or more bullets, and temporarily survive as long, as any animal in existence. He has the vitality of the grizzly bear. Mountain goats, as the cowboy said of the western horse thieves, “take a lot of killing.”

This same day I saw a number of goats abreast coming head foremost down a nearly vertical smooth wall; they had complete composure. They appeared to be putting on brakes with hoofs and dew claws. Loose stones which they occasionally started might have been serious or fatal for one in the lead had they been descending single file. As soon as they reached a ledge at the bottom they stopped to look round, and one of them stood up on hind toes to eat moss from an overhanging rock. Two near-by goats of another flock were limping badly. Possibly they had been struck by flying stones, or they may have been injured by a fall. These two accidents appear to be the ones most likely to befall this or any other mountain climber.

The white Rocky Mountain goat really is the wild mountain climber. Of all the big animals or the small ones that I know, none can equal him in ascending smooth and extremely precipitous rock walls. That mountain climbing organization of the Pacific Coast which calls itself “Mazama,” meaning mountain goat, has an excellent title and one peculiarly fitting for mountain climbers on the icy peaks of the Northwest.

Like all good mountain climbers the goat is sure-footed and has feet that are fit. His stubby black hoofs have a dense, rubbery, resilient broad heel. The outer shell of the hoof is hard, but I think not so hard as the hoofs of most animals.

One season in Alaska I came close upon a party of seven mountain goats in the head of a little cañon. I supposed them cornered and, advancing slowly so as not to frighten them unduly, I thought to get close. They at once made off without any excitement. At a moderate pace they deliberately proceeded to climb what might be called a smooth, perpendicular wall. It leaned not more than ten or twelve degrees from the vertical. There were a few tiny root clusters on it and here and there a narrow ledge. After a short distance the goats turned to the right, evidently following a cleavage line, and climbed diagonally for two hundred feet. They went without a slip. Most of the time they were climbing two abreast; occasionally they were three abreast. Each, however, kept himself safely away from the others. As they approached the top they climbed single file, old billy leading.

This last climb proved to be the most ticklish part of the ascent. The one leading stood on hind toes with breast pressed close against the cliff and reached up as far as he could with fore feet. He felt of the rocks until he found a good foothold and clinging place, then putting his strength into fore legs literally drew up his body. His hind feet then secured holds and held all gained. Again and again he stood on his toes and reached upward, caught a foothold, and pulled himself up. Just before going over the skyline he reached up with front feet, but apparently found no secure place. He edged along the wall a foot or two to the left and tried, but not satisfied with what he found, edged several feet to the right. Here, squatting slightly, he made a leap upward, caught with his fore hoofs, drew himself up, and stood on the skyline. After two or three seconds he moved on, faced about, and closely watched the others. Each goat in turn, daringly, slowly, and successfully followed his precipitous course.

John Burroughs says that a fox is a pretty bit of natural history on legs. The mountain goat is just the reverse. I have never seen a big animal which, both in outline and action, is so much the embodiment of stiffness and clumsiness, just block-headed, lumbering wood sections. The fox is alert, keen, quick, agile, slender, graceful, and deft, and looks all these parts.

The goat is a trifle smaller than the mountain sheep. The weight of a full-grown male is about two hundred and fifty pounds. He has a heavy body, high shoulders, and retiring hind quarters; he somewhat resembles a small buffalo. His odd head is attached to a short neck and is carried below the line of the shoulders. He has a long face and an almost grotesque beard often many inches long. The horns are nearly black, smooth, and slender. They grow from the top of the head, curve slightly outward and backward for eight or ten inches, and end in a sharp point. The horns of both sexes are similarly developed and are used by both with equal skill. The goat’s hair, tinged with yellow but almost white, is of shaggy length.

In running he is not speedy. His actions are those of an overfat, aged, and rheumatic dog. He appears on the verge of a collapse. Every jump is a great effort and lands far short of the spot aimed at. Nearly all graceful movements were omitted in his training. Nearly all the actions of this woodeny fellow suggest that a few of his joints are too loose and that most of the others are too tight. He gets up and lies down as though not accustomed to working his own levers and hinges.

Many times I have seen a goat trying in an absurd, awkward manner, after lying down, to remove bumps or stones from beneath him. Holding out one or more legs at a stiff angle, he would claw away with one of the others at the undesired bump. Sometimes he would dig off a chunk of sod; other times a stone or two would be dislodged and pushed out. It seems to be a part of his ways and his habits not to rise to do this, or even to seek a better place. However, an acquaintance with his home territory gives one a friendly feeling for him. After seeing him composedly climbing a pinnacle, apparently accessible only to birds, one begins to appreciate a remarkable coördination of head and foot work.

Although the goat appears clumsy he is the animal least likely to slip, to stumble, to miss his footing or to fall. While the mountain sheep perhaps excels him in zigzag drop and skip-stop down precipitous places, nothing that I have seen equals the wild goat when it comes to going up slopes smooth and almost vertical. His rock and ice work are one hundred per cent efficient.

When it comes to what you may call durability the goat is in the front ranks. He can climb precipices and pinnacles all day long and in every kind of weather. When not otherwise engaged he plays both on roomy levels and unbanistered precipice fronts. He is ever fit, always prepared. From the view-point of many hunters the grizzly bear, the mountain sheep, and the mountain goat are almost in a class by themselves. They exact a high standard of endurance and skill from the hunter who goes after them.

These wild white goats are found only in the mountains of northwestern United States, western Canada, and Alaska where the majority live on high mountain ranges above the timberline. The goat is a highlander. Excepting the few along the northwest coast which come down to near sea level, they live where a parachute would seem an essential part of their equipment.

Many high mountains are more storm-swept than the land of the Eskimo. Storms of severity may rage for days, making food-getting impossible. But storms are a part of the goat’s life; he has their transformed energy. He also has his full share of sunshine and calm. Though up where winter wind and storm roar wildest, he is up where the warm chinook comes again and again and periods of sunshine hold sway. He is fond of sunshine and spends hours of every fit day lying in sunny, sheltered places.

During prolonged storms goats sometimes take refuge in cave-like places among rock ledges or among the thickly matted and clustered tree growths at timberline. But most of the time, even during the colder periods of winter, when the skyline is beaten and dashed with violent winds and stormed with snowy spray, the goat serenely lives on the broken heights in the sky. Warmly clad, with heavy fleece-lined coat of silky wool, and over this a thick, long, and shaggy overcoat of hair, he appears utterly to ignore the severest cold.

The goat thus is at home on the exacting mountain horizon of the world. Glaciers are a part of his wild domain; cloud scenery a part of his landscape. He lives where romantic streams start on their adventurous journeys to mysterious and far-off seas; arctic flowers and old snow fields have place in the heights he ever surveys; he treads the crest of the continent and climbs where the soaring eagle rests. The majority of goats are born, live, and die on peak or plateau above the limits of tree life.

The goat distinctly shows the response of an animal to its environment. Of course an animal that can live among cañons, ice, and crags must be sure-footed, keen-eyed, and eternally wide-awake. He must watch his step and watch every step. Again and again he travels along narrow ridges where dogs would slide off or be blown overboard; he lives in an environment where he is constantly in danger of stepping on nothing or sliding off the icescape. Certain habits and characteristics are exacted from the animal which succeeds on the mountain tops. The goat’s rock and ice climbing skill, his rare endurance, and his almost eternal alertness all indicate that he has lived in this environment for ages. His deadly horns and his extraordinary skill in using them show that at times he has to defend himself against animals as well as compete with the elements.

Commonly the Rocky Mountain goat lives in small flocks of a dozen or less, and his home territory does not appear to be a large one. Local goats of scattered territories make a short, semi-annual migratory journey and have different summer and winter ranges, but this appears to be exceptional. They feed upon the alpine plants, dwarfed willows, and shrubby growths of mountain slopes and summits. They may also eat grass freely.

Bighorn sheep also live above the timberline. In some localities they and the goat are found together. But sheep make occasional lowland excursions, while goats stay close to the skyline crags and the eternal snows, descending less frequently below the timberline except in crossing to an adjoining ridge or peak. Among the other mountain-top neighbours of the goat are ground squirrels, conies, weasels, foxes, grizzly bears, lions, ptarmigan, finches, and eagles; but not all of these would be found together, except in a few localities.

The goat, in common with all the big, wide-awake animals that I know of, has a large bump of curiosity. Things that are unusual absorb his attention until he can make their acquaintance. A number of times after goats had retreated from my approach, and a few times before they had thought to move on, I discovered them watching me, peeping round the corner of a crag or over a boulder. While thus intent they did not appear to be animals with a place in natural history.

In crossing a stretch of icy slope on what is now called Fusillade Mountain, in Glacier National Park, I sat down on the smooth steep ice to control my descent and bring more bearing surface as a brake on the ice. I hitched along. Pausing on a projecting rock to look round, I discovered two goats watching me. They were within a stone’s toss. Both were old and had long faces and longer whiskers, and both were sitting dog fashion. They made a droll, curious appearance as they watched me and my every move with absolute concentration.

I do not know how long the average goat lives. The few hunters who have been much in the goat’s territory offer only guesses concerning his age. One told me that he had shot a patriarchal billy that had outlived all of his teeth and also his digestion. The old fellow had badly blunted hoofs and was but little more than a shaggy, skin-covered skeleton.

Although his home is a healthful one, the conditions are so exacting and the winter storms sometimes so long, severe, and devitalizing, that it is probable that the goat lives hardly longer than twelve or fifteen years.

The goat is, I think, comparatively free from death by accidents or disease. Until recently, when man became a menace, he had but few, and no serious, enemies. Being alert and capable among the crags, and in defense of himself exceedingly skillful with his deadly sharp horns, he is rarely attacked by the lion, wolf, or bear. True, the kids are sometimes captured by eagles.

There are a number of species of wild goats in the Old World—in southern Europe, in many places in Asia and in northern Africa. The white Rocky Mountain goat is the only representative of his species on our continent. He is related to the chamois. Some scientists say that this fellow is not a goat at all, but that he is a descendant of the Asiatic antelope, which came to America about half a million years ago. This classification, however, is not approved by a number of scientists. The Rocky Mountain goat, Oreamnos montanus, is in no way related to the American antelope, and it would take a post-mortem demonstration to show the resemblance to the African species.

By any other name he would still be unique. Dressed in shaggy, baggy knickerbockers, he is a living curiosity. I never see one standing still without thinking of his being made up of odds and ends, of a caricature making a ludicrous pretense of being alive and looking solemn. And then I remember that this animal is the mountaineer of mountaineers.

CHAPTER II
THE HAYMAKER OF THE HEIGHTS

The first time I climbed Long’s Peak I heard a strange, wild cry or call repeated at intervals. “Skee-ek,” “Ke-ack,” came from among the large rocks along the trail a quarter of a mile below the limits of tree growth. It might be that of bird or beast. Half squeak, half whistle, I had not heard its like. Though calling near me, the maker kept out of sight.

A hawk flew over with a screech not unlike this mysterious “Skee-ek.” I had about decided that it was dropping these “Ke-acks” when a rustling and a “Skee-ek” came from the other side of the big rock close by me. I hurried around to see, but nothing was there.

This strange voice, invisible and mocking like an echo, called from time to time all the way to the summit of the peak. And as I stood on the highest point, alone as I supposed, from somewhere came the cry of the hidden caller. As I looked, there near me on a big flat rock sat a cony. He was about six inches long and in appearance much like a guinea pig; but with regulation rabbit ears he might have passed for a young rabbit. His big round ears were trimmed short.

Rarely do I name a wild animal—it does not occur to me to do so. But as he was the first cony I had seen, and seeing him on top of Long’s Peak, I called him almost unconsciously, “Rocky.”

Rocky raised his nose and head, braced himself as though to jump, and delivered a shrill “Ke-ack.” He waited a few seconds, then another “Skee-ek.” I moved a step toward him and he started off the top.

That winter I climbed up to look for a number of objects and wondered concerning the cony. I supposed he spent the summer on the mountain tops and wintered in the lowlands. But someone told me that he hibernated. At twelve thousand feet I heard a “Skee-ek” and then another. An hour later I saw conies sitting, running over the rocks, and shouting all around me—more like recess time at school than hibernating sleep.

One of these conies was calling from a skyline rock thirteen thousand feet above the sea. I walked toward him, wondering how near he would let me come. He kept up his “Skee-eking” at intervals, apparently without noticing me, until within ten or twelve feet. Then he sort of skated off the rock and disappeared. This was the nearest any cony, with the exception of Rocky on the top of Long’s Peak, had ever let me come. His manner of getting off the rock, too, instead of starting away from me in several short runs, made me think it must be Rocky.

The American cony lives on top of the world—on the crest of the continent. By him lives also the weasel, the ptarmigan, and the Bighorn wild sheep; but no other fellow lives higher in the sky than he; he occupies the conning tower of the continent.

But what did these “rock-rabbits” eat? They were fat and frolicking the year around.

The following September I came near Rocky again. He was standing on top of a little haystack—his haystack. All alone he was working. This was his food supply for the coming winter; conies are grass and hay eaters. A hay harvest enables the cony to live on mountain tops.

Rocky’s nearly complete stack was not knee-high, and was only half a step long. As I stood looking at him and his tiny stack of hay, he jumped off and ran across the rocks as fast as his short legs could speed him. A dozen or so steps away he disappeared behind a boulder, as though leaving for other scenes.

But he came running back with something in his mouth—more hay. This he dropped against the side of the stack and ran off again behind the boulder.

I looked behind the boulder. There was a small hay field, a ragged space covered with grass and wild flowers, surrounded with boulders and with ice and old snow at one corner. Acres of barren rocks were all around and Long’s Peak rose a rocky crag high above.

Back from the stack came the cony and leaped into the field, rapidly bit off a number of grass blades and carrying these in his mouth raced off for the stack. The third time he cut off three tall, slender plant stalks and at the top of one a white and blue flower fluttered. With these stalks crosswise in his teeth, the stalks extending a foot each side of his cheeks, he galloped off to his stack.

Many kinds of plants were mixed in this haystack. Grass blades, short, long, fine, and coarse; large leaves and small; stalks woody and stalks juicy. Flowers still clung to many of these stalks—yellow avens, alpine gentians, blue polemonium, and purple primrose.

The home of Rocky was at approximately 13,000 feet. The cony is found over a belt that extends from this altitude down to 9,500. In many regions timberline splits the cony zone. In this zone he finds ample dwelling places under the surface between the rocks of slides and moraines.

Conies appear to live in rock-walled, rock-floored dens. I have not seen a cony den in earth matter. With few exceptions all dens seen were among the boulders of moraines or the jumbled rocks of slides. Both these rock masses are comparatively free of earthy matter. Dens are, for the most part, ready-made. About all the cony has to do is to find the den and take possession.

In the remains of a caved moraine I saw parts of a number of cony dens exposed. The dens simply were a series of irregularly connected spaces between the boulders and rock chunks of the moraine. Each cony appears to have a number of spaces for sleeping, hay-stacking, and possibly for exercise. One cony had a series of connected rooms, enough almost for a cliff-dweller city. One of these rooms was filled with hay, and in three others were thin nests of hay.

These dens are not free from danger. Occasionally an under-cutting stream causes a morainal deposit to collapse. Snowslides may cover a moraine deeply with a deposit of snow and this in melting sends down streams of water; the roof over cony rooms leaks badly; he vacates.

Photo. by Frank Palmer

Goat-land

Slide rock—the home of the cony—frequently is his tomb. All cliffs are slowly falling to pieces, and occasionally a clinging mass weighing hundreds and possibly thousands of tons lets go and down the slide rock it tumbles, bounding, crushing, and tearing. The conies that escape being crushed come out peeved and protesting against unnecessary disturbances.

One day while crossing the heights there came a roaring and a crashing on the side of a peak that rose a thousand feet above the level of the plateau. A cloud of rock dust rose and filled the air completely for several minutes. As the echoes died away there were calls and alarmed cries of conies. Hastening to the bottom of a slope of slide rock I found scattered fragments of freshly broken rocks. A mass had fallen near the top of the peak and this had crashed down upon the long slope of slide rock, tearing and scattering the surface and causing the entire slope of a thousand feet or more to settle. I could hear a subdued creaking, groaning, and grinding together, with a slight tumble of a fragment on surface.

This slide had been temporarily changed into a rock glacier—a slow, down-sliding mass of confused broken rocks. Its numerous changing subterranean cavities were not safe places for conies.

Numbers of conies were “Skee-eking” and scampering. Weasels were hurrying away from the danger zone. Possibly a number of each had been crushed.

The conies thus driven forth probably found other dens near by, and a number I am certain found welcome and refuge for the night in the dens of conies in undisturbed rocks within a stone’s throw of the bottom of the slide.

The upper limits of the inhabited cony zone present a barren appearance. Whether slide or moraine, the surface is mostly a jumble of rocks, time-stained and lifeless. But there are spaces, a few square feet, along narrow ledges or in little wind-blown or water-placed piles of soil, which produce dwarfed shrubs, grasses, and vigorous plants and wild flowers.

Dried food in the form of hay is what enables the cony to endure the long winters and to live merrily in the very frontier of warm-blooded life. In this zone he lives leisurely.

Rocky placed his haystack between boulders, beneath the edge of the big flat rock on which he sat for hours daily, except during haymaking time. As soon as the stack was dry he carried the hay down into his underground house and stacked it in one or more of the rock-walled rooms. It appears that all cony stacks are placed by the entrance of the den, and in as sheltered a spot as possible. Rocky cut and stacked his hay during September, then early October I saw him carrying it underground.

These cony haystacks were of several sizes and many shapes. The average one was smaller than a bushel basket. I have seen a few that contained twice or even three times the contents of a bushel.

There were rounded haystacks, long and narrow ones, and others of angular shape. But few were of good form, and the average stack had the appearance of a wind-blown trash pile, or a mere heap of dropped hay. Invariably the stack was placed between or to the leeward of rocks; evidently for wind protection.

One stack in a place was the custom. But a number of times I have seen two, four, and once five stacks in collection. Near each stack collection was an equal number of entrances to cony dens.

But little is known concerning the family life of the cony. Nor do I know how long the average cony lives. A prospector in the San Juan Mountains saw a cony frequently through four years. I had glimpses of Rocky a few times each year for three years. During the second summer one of his ears was torn and the slit never united. Just how this happened I do not know.

All conies that I saw making hay were working alone. But there were five conies at work in one field. One of these haymakers was lame in the left hind foot. Each haycutter carried his load off to his stack. One stack was thirty steps from the field; the one of the lame fellow, fortunately, was only eight steps.

The cony is a relative of the rabbit, the squirrel, the beaver, and the prairie dog. Although he has a home underground, he spends most of his waking hours outdoors. Above ground on a rock he sits—in the sunshine, in cloud, and even in the rain.

Except during harvest, or when seeking a new home, he works but little. Much of the time he simply sits. On a rock that rises two feet or more above the surrounding level he sits by the hours, apparently dreaming.

By the entrance of Rocky’s den lay a large, flat slab of granite, several feet long. This was raised upon boulders. He stacked his hay beneath the edge of this outreaching slab and upon the slab he spent hours each day, except in busy haymaking time.

With back against his rock, without a move for an hour or longer, he would sit in one spot near his den. Now and then he sent forth a call as though asking a question, and then gravely listened to the responses of far-off conies. Occasionally he appeared to repeat a call as though relaying a message from his station. Many of these “Skee-eks” may at times be just common cony talk, while others, given with different speeds and inflections, sometimes are quick and peculiarly accented, and probably warn of possible danger or tell of the approach of something harmless.

One spring day I came by Rocky’s place and he was not in sight. I waited long, then laid my sweater upon his slab of granite and went on to the home of another cony. On returning Rocky was home. Like a little watch dog he sat upon the sweater.

Another time in June he was out in the hay meadow eating the short young plants. I stood within ten feet of him and he went on eating as though he did not know I was there. Occasionally he called “Ke-ack” that appeared to be relayed to far-off conies. He did not seem to be watching me but the instant I moved he darted beneath a rock out of sight.

Conies are shy wherever I have found them, and I found many in places possibly not before visited by people.

Rocky’s nearest cony neighbour was more than two hundred feet away across the boulders. During a winter visit to him I found cony tracks which indicated that these two conies had exchanged calls.

The cony appears something of a traveller, something of an explorer. A number climb to the summit of the nearest peak during the summer and occasionally one goes far down into the lower lands.

A few times I have seen them as explorers on top of Long’s Peak and other peaks that rise above 14,000 feet; and occasionally a cony comes to my cabin and spends a few days looking around, taking refuge, and spending the nights in the woodpile. My cabin is at 9,000 feet, and the nearest cony territory is about a mile up the mountainside.

One snowy day, while out following a number of mountain sheep, I passed near the home of Rocky and turned aside hoping to see him. Before reaching his rock I saw a weasel coming toward me with a limp cony upon his shoulder and clutched by the throat. The weasel saw me and kept on coming toward me, and would, I believe, have brushed by. He appeared in a hurry to take his kill somewhere, probably home.

I threw a large chunk of snow which struck upon a rock by him. He fell off the rock in scrambling over the snow. But he clung to the cony and dragged it out of reach beneath a boulder.

No fur or blood was found on Rocky’s rock nor on any of the rocks surrounding his den. Possibly the cony carried by the weasel was another cony. Just what may have become of Rocky I cannot be sure. Possibly he was crushed by the settling of the rock walls of his house; a fox, eagle, or weasel may have seized him. But at any rate, I never saw him again that I know of, and that autumn no busy little haymaker appeared in the meadow among the boulders.

The weasel is the most persistent and effective enemy of the cony. Evidently he is dreaded by them. Bears, lions, coyotes, foxes, and eagles occasionally catch a cony; but the weasel often does. The weasel is agile, powerful, slender bodied, and can follow a cony into the smaller hiding places of the den and capture him. During winter he is the snow-white ermine, and in white easily slips up over the snow unseen. He can outrun, outdodge a cony, and then, too, he is a trained killer. From the weasel there is no escape for the cony.

During winter rambles in cony highlands I occasionally discovered a stack of hay on the surface. Most stacks are moved into the dens before winter is on.

When a stack is left outside it commonly means that either the stack is exceptionally well sheltered from wind and snow, and in easy and safe reach of the cony, or else the little owner has lost his life—an avalanche or other calamity forced him to leave the locality.

One sunny morning I set off early on snowshoes to climb high and to search for the scattered cony haystacks among the rocks on the side of Long’s Peak. A haystack sheltered against a cliff was found at timberline. By it was the fresh track of a bighorn ram. He had eaten a few bites of the hay. No other part of the stack had been touched. Around were no cony tracks in the snow. The stack had the appearance of being incomplete. Had a lynx or other prowler captured the haymaker in the unsheltered hayfield? Evidently the owner or builder had not been about for weeks. A slowly forming icicle almost filled the unused entrance to the cony den.

Against the bottom of one large slide of rock was a grassy meadow of a few acres which during summer was covered with a luxuriant growth of grass and wild flowers. Three big stacks of hay stood at the bottom of this slide in a stockade of big rock chunks. The hay was completely sheltered from the wind; from the rich near-by hayfield the stack had been built large. Close to the stacks three holes descended into cony dens.

Had these three near neighbour conies worked together in cutting, carrying, and piling these three stacks? They were separated by only a few inches and had been cut from one near-by square rod of meadow. But it is likely that each cony worked independently.

Far up the mountainside I found and saw an account of a cony adventure written in the snow. In crossing a barren snow-covered slide I came upon cony tracks coming down. I back-tracked to see where they came from.

A quarter of a mile back and to one side a snowslide mingled with gigantic rock fragments had swept down and demolished a part of a moraine and ruined a cony home. This must have been a week or more before. The snow along the edge of the disturbed area was tracked and re-tracked—a confusion of cony footprints.

But the cony making the tracks which I followed had left the place and proceeded as though he knew just where he was going. He had not hesitated, stopped, nor turned to look back. Where was he bound for? I left the wreckage to follow his tracks.

Up over a ridge the tracks led, then down a slope to the place where I had discovered them, then to the left along a terrace a quarter of a mile farther. Here they disappeared beneath huge rocks.

In searching for the tracks beyond I came in view of a tiny cony haystack back in a cave-like place formed among the rocks. By this was the entrance to a cony den. In the thin layer of snow were numerous cony tracks. To this entrance I traced the cony.

As I stooped, examining things beneath, I heard a cony call above. Edging out of the entrance I saw two conies. They were sitting on the same rock in the sunshine. One probably was the owner of the little haystack—the other the cony from the wrecked home.

CHAPTER III
INTRODUCING MR. AND MRS. SKUNK

A skunk expects the other fellow to do the running. Not having much practice he does not have any high speed and puts much awkward effort and action into all speeding.

One September day a skunk came into the grove where I was watching, and stopping by an old log did a little digging. While eating grubs he was disturbed by a falling pine cone. The cone was light, but had a few spots of soft pitch upon it. It stuck to his tail. Greatly disturbed, the skunk thrashed and floundered about until he shook the cone off.

A busy squirrel was harvesting and paying no attention to where his cones were falling. Down came another cone. This landed not behind the skunk but in front. Already troubled, the skunk stuck his tail straight up and struck an attitude of defense.

The skunk had been attending to his own affairs. But after being struck by one cone and threatened with others, I suppose he thought it time to defend himself. He looked all around, and with stiffly turned neck was trying to see into the tree-tops when another cone came pattering down on the other side of him. This frightened him and at best speed he started in a run out of the grove. Just as he was well into action another squirrel cut off a cone and this bounded and struck near the skunk. He passed me doing his best, and I am sure at record speed for a skunk.

The skunk is ever prepared. So ready is he that bears, lions, or wolves rarely attempt to spring a surprise. I ever tried not to surprise one, but one day a skunk surprised me.

I was edging carefully along a steep, grassy mountainside that was slippery with two or three inches of wet snow. But with all my care both feet suddenly lost traction at once. Out I shot over the slippery slope. As I went I swerved slightly and grabbed for a small bush. A second before landing I saw a skunk behind that bush; he at that instant saw me. The bush came out by the roots and down slid bush, skunk, and myself.

I expected every second that the skunk would attend strictly to business. In the sliding and tumbling I rolled completely over him. But as there was “nothing doing” he must have been too agitated or too busy to go into action.

At just what age the fighting apparatus of a young skunk functions there is no safe way of judging. If an enemy or an intruder appear near a young skunk before his defensive machinery has developed the youngster strikes an impressive attitude, puts up a black-plumed tail, and runs an effective bluff.

I came upon a black bear, who had guessed wrong, just a few minutes after he had charged a pair of young skunks. His tracks showed that he had paused to look at them and do a little thinking before he charged. He had advanced, stopped, stood behind a rock pile and debated the matter. The skunks were young—but just how young? Perhaps he had tasted delicious young skunk, and possibly he had not yet taken a skunk seriously. When I came up he was rubbing his face against a log and had already taken a dive in the brook.

A fox came into the scene where I was watching an entire skunk family. In his extravagantly rich robe he was handsome as he stood in the shadow close to a young skunk. Without seeing the mother, he leaped to seize the youngster. But he swerved in the air as he met the old skunk’s acid test. Regardless of his thousand-dollar fur, he rolled, thrashed, and tumbled about in the bushes and in the mud flat by a brook.

A little girl came running toward a house with her arms full of something and calling, “See what cunning kittens I found.” She leaped merrily among the guests on the porch, let go her apron, and out dropped half-a-dozen young skunks.

How many times can a skunk repeat? How many acid shots can a skunk throw at an annoyer or an enemy before he is through? was one of my youthful interests in natural history.

Eight times was, so everyone said, the repeating capacity of skunk fire.

One morning while out with two other boys and their dogs it fell to my lot to check up on this.

We came upon a skunk crossing an open field. There was no cover, and in a short time each of our three cur dogs had experienced twice and ceased barking. Each of the boys had been routed. All this time I had dodged and danced about enjoying these exhibitions and skunk demonstrations.

While in action on the dogs and at the boys he had an extraordinary field of range. From one stand, apparently by moving his body, he threw a chemical stream horizontal, then nearly vertical, and then swept the side lines. Far off a tiny solid stream hit in one spot; close up it was a cloud of spray.

When the innocent wood pussy paused after eight performances I felt assured that of course he must be out of eradicator. But he wasn’t.

For years I avoided the skunk, the black and white plume-tailed aristocrat. This generally was not difficult; he likes privacy and surrounds himself with an exclusive, discouraging atmosphere.

After a number of chance trial meetings with skunks I found that they were interesting and dependable. From them one knows just what to expect. The skunk attends to his own affairs and discourages familiarity and injustice. He is independent, allows no one to pat him on the back, and no pup to chase him. He is no respecter of persons nor of robes.

For years, I think, the skunk families near my cabin considered me a good neighbour. One mated pair lived near me for three years. These gave me good glimpses of skunk life. Their clothes were ever clean and bright; often in front of the den I stood near while they polished their shining black and white fur. A few times I saw the old ones carry grasshoppers and mice into the den for the waiting little ones. A few times I saw the entire family start afield—off for a hunt or for fun.

The last time I saw this pair before the old spruce blew over and ruined their den, both mother and father were out playing with the children. She was shooing and brushing the little skunks with her tail, and they were trying to grab it. He was on his back in the grass, feet in the air, with two or three youngsters tossing and tumbling about on his kicking feet.

Skunks have a home territory—a locality in which they may spend their lives. The territory over which skunks hunt or ramble for amusement is about a thousand feet in diameter. Rarely were tracks five hundred feet from the dens of the several families near me. But twice a skunk had gone nearly a mile away; both of these were outings, evidently pleasure trips and not hunts.

Once when a Mr. and Mrs. Skunk wandered up the mountainside seeking adventure and amusement I trailed them—read their record in the snow. They climbed more than two thousand feet among the crags and explored more than a mile into the wilderness. They found and ate a part of the contents of a mouse nest. They killed other mice and left these uneaten. This outing was a frolic and not a foraging expedition.

Homeward, Mr. and Mrs. Skunk chose a different route from the one taken in going up the mountain. They travelled leisurely, going the longest way, pausing at one place to play and at another to sit and possibly to doze in the sunshine.

Photo. by E. B. Webster

A Wild Cat

Photo. by Frank H. Rose

Bear Feet. A bear footprint is humanlike

Photo. by George F. Diehl

A Black Bear

Photo. by E. R. Warren

Antelope

At one point they apparently defended themselves. Coyote tracks behind a log within ten feet of them, their own tracks showing an attitude of defense, and a wild leap and retreat of the coyote—this was the story in the snow.

The majority of my lively skunk experiences were the result of my trying to get more closely acquainted with him. On a number of occasions, however, I was an innocent bystander while some other person had the experience. Then through years of outdoor life I have known skunks to do numerous things of interest in which skunk character and not skunk scent was the centre of interest.

During a night of flooding rain a mother skunk and five tiny skunkies came into the kitchen of a family with whom I was temporarily staying. They probably had been drowned out. Mother skunk was killed and the little ones thrown out the window to die. But father skunk still lived. The next evening when I went in search of the young ones, as I stood looking about, father skunk walked into a bunch of grass and lifted a little skunk out. Taking mouth hold on the back of its neck he carried it a few feet, laid it down, and then picked up another little skunk with it. With the two youngsters hanging from this mouth hold he carried them off into the woods.

An entire family of skunks out on a frolic came unexpectedly upon me. They numbered eight. I was sitting on a log against a pine, and resolved not to move. In front of me the mother stepped upon a thorn, flinched, and lifted her foot to examine it. All gathered about her. As they moved this way and that, in the sunshine then in the shadows, their shiny black and clean white showed as though just scoured and polished. Surely they were freshly groomed for a party.

Without noticing me they began playing, jumping, and scuffling about. Then single file they pursued one another round a tree. In a mass they suddenly started to rush round the pine against which I sat. I saw them vanish behind the northwest quarter but when they swept round the southeast I was not there.

In Montana I was sitting on top of a low cliff looking down into a willow thicket below, when a deer shied from the willows and hurried on. Then a coyote came out mad and sneezing. A squirrel went down to investigate but quickly climbed a pine sputtering and threatening. The unusual ever lured me—appealed to my curiosity—and often this brought adventure plus information. So down into the willows I started. From the side of the cliff I reached an out-thrust limb of a pine, swung out, and let go to drop just as the ascending air filled with skunk publicity.

It is sometimes difficult to predict correctly what a skunk will do next. At times my skunk neighbours by my cabin prowled forth at night and again it was in daytime. Generally they showed no concern with the movements of birds and animals unless one came close. On other days they would watch the moves of everything within eye range. Hurrying down a mountainside I one day struck a large skunk with my heavy shoe and knocked him senseless. I waited and watched him survive. Seeing me standing by him he rolled over and played possum.

The young skunks stay with the parents for about one year, I think. In the few instances where I had glimpses inside of winter hibernating dens, the entire family was hibernating together. Apparently the young winter with the parents the first year and scatter the following spring.

Gladly I headed for a prospector’s cabin in which I was to spend a few days and nights. I was scarcely seated by his fireplace when he went outside to “cut some meat” that hung at the rear of the cabin.

The first thing I knew a big skunk stood in the doorway. He looked my way, then started matter-of-fact for me. To heighten interest and to introduce suspense nothing equals the presence of a skunk.

With utmost effort I sat tight. It would have taken more effort to try to turn the skunk or to dodge him. But had I known his next move I would have moved first. He sprang into my lap.

It was too late to dodge so I sat still. He stood up and with paws against me began to look me over. I did not care to lift him off, and he did not “scat.” I stood up so he would slide off. With a forepaw in my vest pocket he hung on and I did not risk shaking too violently.

Finally, realizing that he must be a pet, I sat down and began to stroke him. He took this kindly and by the time the prospector returned I was at ease.

Not finding any fresh eggs in a hen’s nest, a young skunk started playing with a lone china egg. He was so interested that I came close without his noticing me. He rolled the egg over, pawed it about, tapped it with forepaws, and then smelled it. All the time he was comically serious in expression. Then he held the china egg in forepaws above his head; lay down on his back and played with it, using all four feet; rolled it across his stomach and finally stood up like a little bear and holding the egg against his stomach with forepaws looked it over with a puzzled expression.

The happy adventures of outdoor life never reduce the excess profits of life insurance companies. They lengthen life. Enjoying the sense of smell is one of the enjoyments of the open country; the spice of the pines and perfumes of wild flowers, the chemical pungency of rain, sun, and soil, the mellow aromas of autumn, and the irrepressible odour of the skunk.

The occupants of a city flat had complained for two days of the lack of heat. The janitor fired strong, but the protests continued. The hot air system did not work. The main must be blockaded, so the janitor thrust in the poker and stirred things up. There was a lively scratching inside. A skunk protested then came scrambling out. Instantly a skunk protest was registered in every room, and a protester against skunk air rushed forth from each room.

Indians say that skunk meat is a delicacy. The frequent attempts of lion and coyote to seize him suggest that he is a prize.

An old joke of the prairie is this skunk definition, “A pole cat is an animal not safe to kill with a pole.” But the Indians of the Northwest say that a skunk may be so killed and that a sharp whack of a pole across his back paralyzes nerve action—result, no smell.

In a conversation with a Crow Indian he assured me of his ability to successfully kill a skunk with a pole, and also that he was planning to have a fresh one for dinner. I was to eat with him.

He procured a pole and invited me to go along. I told him of my plan to go down stream for the night. He would not hear of it. As I made ready to go his entire family, then a part of the tribe, came to protest as they were planning tomorrow to show me a bear den and a number of young beavers. There was no escape.

Skunk stew was served. I felt more solemn than I appeared, but not wanting to offend the tribe I tried a mouthful of skunk. But there are some things that cannot be done. I tried to swallow it but go down it simply would not. The Indians had been watching me and suddenly burst out in wild laughter and saved me.

I wonder if the clean white forked stripe in the jet black of the skunk’s back renders him visible in the night. Does this visibility prevent other animals from colliding with him, and thus prevent the consequences of such collision? The skunk prowls both day and night, and it may be that this distinct black and white coat is a protection—prevents his being mistaken for some other fellow.

A skunk is easily trapped. He is a dull-witted fellow, and has little strategy or suspicion. So well protected is he against attack, and so readily can he seize upon the food just secured by another, that rarely does he become excited or move quickly. He never seems to hurry or worry.

I do not believe that I ever missed an opportunity to see a skunk close up. Of course I never aimed to thrust myself upon them. But repeatedly I was surprised by them and it took days to get over it.

A brush pile was filled with skunks. When I leaped upon it they rushed forth on every side, stopped, and waited for me to go away. I was in a hurry, and as they refused to be driven farther off I made way for liberty.

Skunks are not bad people; they simply refuse to be kicked around or to have salt placed upon their plumy tails. Sooner or later every animal in a skunk’s territory turns his back on the skunk and refuses to have anything to do with him. But the skunk turns first.

The skunk to go into action reverses ends and puts up his tail. Every animal in the woods wonders as he meets a skunk; wonders, “What luck now?” Head he wins or tails the skunk wins. When a skunk goes into reverse—thus runs the world away.

The desert skunks that I saw were mighty hunters. Two were even willing to pose for a picture by their kills: one had a five-foot rattlesnake; the other a desert rat. There may be hydrophobia skunks, but I have not seen them nor their victims wasting their lives on the desert bare.

Skunk character and habits evidently changed as the skunk evolved his defensive odour to a state of effectiveness. He now is slow and dull witted. Formerly he probably was mentally alert and physically efficient. His relatives the mink, weasel, and otter are of extraordinary powers. While all these have an obnoxious odour, the mink especially, the skunk is the only one who has made it a far-reaching means of defense.

Skunks appear to be of Asiatic origin. They may have come into America across the Siberia-Alaska land bridge a million or so years ago. Fossil skunks ages old are found in fossil deposits in the Western states.

“Hurry,” called a trapper with whom I was camping, as he dashed up, seized his tent-fly, and disappeared behind a clump of trees. As it was a perfectly clear evening, this grabbing of a tent-fly and frantically rushing off suggested the possibility of his running amuck. But I never ask questions too quickly, and this time there was no opportunity.

As I rounded the trees there before me were two fighting skunks being separated by the trapper. Both turned on him for separating them; but he was into the tent-fly and nearly out of range. Again they were at grips and were biting, clawing, and rolling about when the trapper rushed in, caught his shoe beneath them, and with a leg swing threw them hurtling through the air. They dropped splash into the brook. They separated and swam out to different sides of the brook.

The following day a skunk came out of the woods below camp and fed along the brook in the willows, then out across an opening. I watched him for an hour or longer.

At first I thought him a youngster and started to get close to him. But while still at safe range I looked at him through my field glasses and remained at a distance. Yet I am satisfied that he was a youngster, for he allowed a beetle to pinch his nose, ants were swarming all over him before he ceased digging in an ant hill, and a mouse he caught bit his foot.

He dug and ate beetles, ants, grubs from among the grass roots, found a stale mouse, claimed grubs from alongside a stump, and consumed a whole cluster of caterpillars. Then he started toddling across the open. Here he specialized on grasshoppers. Commonly he caught these with a forepaw. At other times with two forepaws or his teeth.

He did not appear to suspect any danger and did not pause to look around. No other skunks came near. He lumbered back toward the willows and here met the trapper. They stopped and stood facing each other at man’s length. The skunk expected him and everything met to retreat promptly or side step and appeared to be surprised that this was not done.

A minute’s waiting and the skunk walked by him at regular speed and never looked up.

CHAPTER IV
THE PERSISTENT BEAVER

I saw a forest fire sweeping down upon the Broken Tree Beaver colony, and I knew that the inhabitants could take refuge in their earthy, fire-proof houses in the water. Their five houses were scattered in the pond like little islands or ancient lake dwellings. A vigorous brook that came down from the snows on Mount Meeker flowed through the pond. Towering spruce trees encircled its shores.

The beavers survived the fiery ordeal, but their near-by and prospective winter food-supply was destroyed. This grove of aspen and every deciduous tree that might have furnished a bark food-supply was consumed or charred by the fire.

Instead of moving, the colony folks spent a number of days clearing the fire wreckage from their pond. With winter near and streams perilously low for travelling, it probably was unwise to go elsewhere and try to build a home and gather a harvest.

One night, early in October, the colonists gnawed down a number of aspens that had escaped the fire. These were in a grove several hundred feet down stream from the pond. A few nights later they commenced to drag the felled aspens up stream into their pond. This was difficult work, for midway between the grove and the pond was a waterfall. The beaver had to drag each aspen out of the water and up a steep bank and make a portage around the falls.

The second night of this up-stream transportation a mountain lion had lain in wait by the falls. Tracks and marks on the muddy slope showed that he had made an unsuccessful leap for two beavers on the portage. The following morning an aspen of eighty pounds’ weight which two beavers had evidently been dragging was lying on the slope. The lion had not only missed, but on the muddy slope he slipped and received a ducking in the deep water-hole below.

Transportation up stream was stopped. The remainder of the felled aspens were piled into a near-by “safety pond.” A shallow stream which beavers use for a thoroughfare commonly has in it a safety pond which they maintain as a harbour, diving into it in case of attack. Usually winter food is stored within a few feet of the house, but in this case it was nearly six hundred feet away. In storing it in the safety pond, the beavers probably were making the best of a bad situation.

Two days after the attack from the lion the beavers commenced cutting trees about fifty yards north of their pond. The beavers took pains to clear a trail or log road over which to drag their felled trees to the pond. Two fallen tree trunks were gnawed into sections, and one section of each rolled out of the way. A two-foot opening was cleared through a tongue of willows, and the cuttings dragged into the pond and placed on top of the food-pile.

One morning a number of abandoned cuttings along this cleared way told that the harvesters had been put to flight. No work was done during the three following nights. Tracks in the mud showed that a lion was prowling about.

Pioneer dangers and hardships are the lot of beaver colonists. The history of every old beaver house is full of stirring interest. The house and the dam must have constant care. Forest fires or other uncontrollable accidents may force the abandonment of the colony at a time when the conditions for travelling are deadly, or when travelling must be done across the country. A score may leave the old home, but only a few survive the journey to the new home site.

The Broken Tree colonists continued the harvest by cutting the scattered aspens along the stream above the pond. A few were cut a quarter of a mile up stream. Before these could be floated down into the pond it was necessary to break a jam of limbs and old trees that had collected against a boulder. The beaver gnawed a hole through the jam. One day a harvester who ventured far up a shallow brook was captured by a grizzly bear. During this unfortunate autumn it is probable that others were lost besides these mentioned. Harvest-getting ended by the pond and the stream freezing over. It is probable that the colonists had to live on short rations that winter.

One winter day a beaver came swimming down into the safety pond. I watched him through the ice. He dislodged a small piece of aspen from the pile in the bottom of the pond and with it went swimming up stream beneath the ice. At the bottom of the icy falls I found a number of aspen cuttings with the bark eaten off. While examining these, I discovered a hole or passageway at the bottom of the falls. This tunnel extended through the earth into the pond above. This underground portage route enabled the beavers to reach their supplies down stream.

The fire had killed a number of tall spruces on the edge of the pond, and their tall half-burned mats swayed threateningly in the wind. One night two of the dead spruces were hurled into the pond. The smaller one had fallen across a housetop, but the house was thick-walled and, being frozen, had sustained the shock which broke the spruce into sections. The other fallen tree fell so heavily upon two of the houses that they were crushed like shells. At least four beavers were killed and a number injured.

Spring came early, and the colonists were no doubt glad to welcome it. The pond, during May and June, was a beautiful place. Grass and wild flowers brightened the shore, and the tips of the spruces were thick with dainty bloom. Deer came up from the lowlands and wild sheep came down from the heights. The woods and willows were filled with happy mating birds. The ousel built and sang by the falls near which it had wintered. Wrens, saucy as ever, and quiet bluebirds and numbers of wise and watchful magpies were about. The Clarke crows maintained their noisy reputation, and the robins were robins still.

One May morning I concealed myself behind a log by the pond, within twenty feet of the largest beaver house. I hoped to see the young beavers. My crawling behind a log was too much for a robin, and she raised such an ado concerning a concealed monster that other birds came to join in the hubbub and to help drive me away. But I did not move, and after two or three minutes of riot the birds took themselves off to their respective nesting-sites.

Presently a brown nose appeared between the house and my hiding place. As a mother beaver climbed upon one of the spruce logs thrust out of the water, her reflection in the water mingled with spruces and the white clouds in the blue field above. She commenced to dress her fur—to make her toilet. After preliminary scratching and clawing with a hind foot, she rose and combed with foreclaws; a part of the time with both forepaws at once. Occasionally she scratched with the double nail on the second toe of the hind foot. It is only by persistent bathing, combing, and cleaning that beavers resist the numerous parasites which thick fur and stuffy, crowded houses encourage.

A few mornings later the baby beavers appeared. The mother attracted my attention with some make-believe repairs on the farther end of the dam, and the five youngsters emerged from the house through the water and squatted on the side of the house before I saw them. For a minute all sat motionless. By and by one climbed out on a projecting stick and tumbled into the water. The others showed no surprise at this accident.

The one in the water did not mind but swam outward where he was caught in the current that started to carry him over the dam. At this stage his mother appeared. She simply rose beneath him. He accepted the opportunity and squatted upon her back with that expressionless face which beavers carry most of the time. There are occasions, however, on which beavers show expression of fear, surprise, eagerness, and even intense pleasure. The youngster sat on his mother’s back as though asleep while she swam with him to the house. Here he climbed off in a matter-of-fact way, as though a ride on a ferry-boat was nothing new to him.

A few weeks later the mother robin who had become so wrought up over my hiding had times of dreadful excitement concerning the safety of her children. If anything out of the usual occurs, the robin insists that the worst possible is about to happen. This season the mother robin had nested upon the top of the beaver house. This was one of the safest of places, but so many things occurred to frighten her that it is a wonder she did not die of heart disease. The young robins were becoming restless at the time the young beavers were active. Every morning, when on the outside of the beaver house each young beaver started in turn as though to climb to the top, poor Mother Robin became almost hysterical. At last, despite all her fears, her entire brood was brought safely off.

During the summer, a majority of the Broken Tree beavers abandoned the colony and moved to other scenes. A number built a half-mile down stream, while the others, with one exception, travelled to an abandoned beaver colony on the first stream to the north. Overland this place was only half a mile from the Broken Tree, but by water route, down stream to the forks then up the other stream to the colony, the distance was three miles. This was an excellent place to live, and with but little repair an old abandoned dam was made better than a new one. All summer a lone beaver of this colony rambled about. Once he returned to the Broken Tree colony. Finally, he cast his lot with the long-established colony several miles down stream.

Late this summer a huge landslide occurred on the stream above the Broken Tree pond. The slide material blocked the channel and formed a large, deep pond. From this dam of débris and the torn slope from which it slipped came such quantities of sediment that it appeared as though the pond might be filled. Every remaining colonist worked day and night to build a dam on the stream just above their pond. They worked like beavers. This new pond caught and stopped the sediment. It was apparently built for this purpose.

The colonists who remained repaired only two of the five houses, and between these they piled green aspen and willow for winter food. But before a tree was cut they built a dam to the north of their home. Water for this was obtained by a ditch or canal dug from the stream at a point above the sediment-catching pond. When the new pond was full, a low grassy ridge about twenty feet across separated it from the old one. A canal about three feet wide and from one to two feet deep was cut through the ridge, to connect the two ponds. The aspens harvested were taken from the slope of a moraine beyond the north shore of the new pond. The canal and the new pond greatly shortened the land distance over which the trees had to be dragged, and this made harvesting safer, speedier, and easier.

Occasionally the beavers did daytime work. While on the lookout one afternoon an old beaver waddled up the slope and stopped by a large standing aspen that had been left by the other workers. At the very bottom this tree was heavily swollen. The old beaver took a bite of its bark and ate with an expressionless face. Evidently it was good, for after eating the old fellow scratched a large pile of trash against the base of the tree, and from this platform gnawed the tree off above the swollen base. While he was gnawing a splinter of wood wedged between his upper front teeth. This was picked out by catching it with the double nails of the second toe on the right hind foot. This aspen was ten inches in diameter at the point cut off. The diameter of trees cut is usually from three to six inches. The largest beaver cutting that I have measured was a cottonwood with a diameter of forty-two inches. On large, old trees the rough bark is not eaten, but from the average tree which is felled for food all of the bark and a small per cent of the wood is eaten. Rarely will a beaver cut dead wood, and only in emergencies will he cut a pine or a spruce. Apparently the pitch is distasteful to him.

One day another beaver cut a number of small aspens and dragged these, one or two at a time, to the pond. After a dozen or more were collected, all were pushed off into the water. Against this small raft the beaver placed his forepaws and swimming pushed it to the food-pile near the centre of the old pond.

At the close of harvest the beavers in Broken Tree colony pond covered their houses above waterline with mud, which they dredged from the pond around the foundations of their houses. Sometimes this mud was moved in their forepaws, sometimes by hooking the tail under and dragging it between their hind legs. Then they dug a channel in the bottom of the pond, which extended from the houses to the dam. Parallel with the dam they dug out another channel; the excavated material was placed on the top of the dam. They also made a shallow ditch in the bottom of the pond that extended from the house to the canal that united the two ponds.

The following summer was a rainy one, and the pond filled with sediment to the height of the dam. Most of this sediment came from the landslide débris or its sliding place. The old Broken Tree colony was abandoned.

Different from most animals, the beaver has a permanent home. The beaver has a strong attachment, or love, for his old home, and will go to endless work and repeatedly risk dangers to avoid moving away. He will dig canals, build dams, or even drag supplies long distances by land through difficult and dangerous places that he may live on in the old place. Here his ancestors may have been born and here he may spend his lifetime. In most cases, however, a colony is not continuously occupied this long. A flood, fire, or the complete exhaustion of food may compel him to move and seek a new home.

In abandoning the Broken Tree pond, one set of dwellers simply went up stream and took possession of the pond which the landslide had formed. Here they gathered supplies and dug a hole or den in the bank but they built no house. An underground tube or passageway connected this den with the bottom of the pond.

The remainder of the colonists started anew about three hundred feet to the north of the old pond. Here a dam about sixty feet long was built, mostly of mud and turf excavated from the area to be filled with water for their pond. They commenced their work by digging a trench and piling the material excavated on the lower side—the beginning of the dam. This ditch was then widened and deepened until the pond was completed. All excavated material was placed upon the dam.

Evidently the site for the house, as well as for the pond, was deliberately selected. The house was built in the pond alongside a spring which in part supplied the pond with water. The supply of winter food was stored in the deep hole from which the material for the house was excavated. The water from the spring checked freezing near the house and the food-pile, and prevented the ice from troubling the colonists. Beavers apparently comprehend the advantage of having a house close to a spring. This spring commonly is between the main house entrance and the winter food-pile.

Their pond did not fill with sediment. As the waters came entirely from springs they were almost free of sediment. After eighteen years of use there was but a thin covering of sediment on the bottom of the pond. Neither brook nor stream entered this pond. Was this pond constructed in this place for the purpose of avoiding sediment? As beavers occasionally and with much labour build in a place of this kind, when there are other and easier near-by places in which to build, it may be that this pond was placed here because it would escape sediment. This was the founding of the Spruce Tree colony. It is still inhabited.

CHAPTER V
THE OTTER PLAYS ON

A long-bodied, yellow-brown animal walked out of the woods and paused for a moment by the rapids of a mountain stream. Its body architecture was that of a dachshund, with the stout neck and small upraised head of a sea lion. Leaping into the rushing water it shot the rapids in a spectacular manner. At the bottom of the rapids it climbed out of the water on the bank opposite me and stopped to watch its mate. This one stood at the top of the rapids. It also leaped in and joyfully came down with the torn and speeding water. It joined the other on the bank.

Together they climbed to the top of the rapids. Again these daredevils gave a thrilling exhibition of running the rushing water. They were American otter, and this was a part of their fun and play. A single false move and the swift water would have hurled and broken them against projecting rocks. In the third run one clung to the top of a boulder that peeped above the mad, swirling water. The other shot over its back a moment later and endeavoured in passing to kick it off.

Though I had frequented the woods for years and had seen numerous otter slides, this was the beginning of my acquaintance with this audacious and capable animal whose play habit and individuality so enliven the wilderness.

Play probably is the distinguishing trait of this peculiar animal. He plays regularly—in pairs, in families, or with numbers who appear to meet for this special purpose. Evidently he plays when this is not connected with food getting or mating. He plays in Florida, in the Rocky Mountains, and in Alaska; in every month of the year; in the sunlight, the moonlight, or darkness. The slippery, ever freshly used appearance of bank slides indicates constant play.

The best otter play that I ever watched was staged one still winter night by a stream in the Medicine Bow Mountains. The snowy slide lay in the moonlight, with the shadow of a solitary fir tree across it. It extended about forty feet down a steep slope to the river. The slide had not been in use for two nights, but coasters began to appear about nine o’clock. A pair opened the coasting. They climbed up the slope together and came down singly. No others were as yet in sight. But in a few minutes fourteen or more were in the play.

Most of the coasters emerged from an open place in the ice over the rapids, but others came down the river over the snow. As the otter population of this region was sparse the attendance probably included the otter representatives of an extensive area. Tracks in the snow showed that four—possibly a family—had come from another stream, travelling over a high intervening ridge four or five miles across. Many may have come twenty miles or farther.

The winter had been dry and cold. The few otters recently seen by daylight were hunting over the snow for grouse and rabbits, far from the stream. Otter food was scarce. Probably many, possibly all, of these merrymakers were hungry, but little would you have guessed it from their play.

It was a merry-go-round of coasters climbing up single file by the slide while coaster after coaster shot singly down. Each appeared to start with a head-foremost vault or dive and to dart downward over the slides with all legs flattened and pointing backward. Each coaster, as a rule, shot straight to the bottom, though a few times one went off at an angle and finished with a roll. A successful slide carried the coaster far out on the smooth ice and occasionally to the farther bank of the river.

After half an hour of coasting all collected at the top of the slide for wrestling contests. A number dodged about, touching, tagging, rearing to clinch and then to roll over. Several exhibitions were occurring at one time. A few times one chased another several yards from the crowd. Once a number stood up in pairs with forepaws on each other’s shoulders and appeared to be waltzing. Finally there was a free-for-all mix-up, a grand rush. One appeared to have an object, perhaps a cone, which all the others were after. Then, as if by common consent, all plunged down the slide together. At the bottom they rolled about for a few seconds in merry satisfaction, but only for a few seconds, for soon several climbed up again and came coasting down in pairs. Thus for an hour the play in the frosty moonlight went on, and without cry or uttered sound. They were coasting singly when I slipped away to my campfire.

The otter is one of the greatest of travellers. He swims the streams for miles or makes long journeys into the hills. On land he usually selects the smoothest, easiest way, but once I saw him descend a rocky precipice with speed and skill excelled only by the bighorn sheep. He has a permanent home range and generally this is large. From his den beneath the roots of a tree, near a stream bank or lake shore, he may go twenty miles up or down stream; or he may traverse the woods to a far-off lake or cross the watershed to the next stream, miles away. He appears to emigrate sometimes—goes to live in other scenes.

These long journeys for food or adventure, sometimes covering weeks, must fill the otter’s life with colour and excitement. Swimming miles down a deep watercourse may require only an hour or two. But a journey up stream often to its very source, through cascades and scant water, would often force the travellers out of the channel and offer endless opportunities for slow progress and unexpected happenings. What an experience for the youngsters!

They may travel in pairs, in families or in numbers. The dangers are hardly to be considered. The grizzly bear could kill with a single bite or stroke of paw; but the agility of the otter would discourage such an attack. A pack of wolves, could they corner the caravan, would likely after severe loss feast on the travellers. The only successful attack that I know of was by a mountain lion on a single otter. Yet so efficient is this long-bodied, deep-biting fellow that I can imagine the mountain lion usually avoiding the otter’s trail.

The long land journeys from water to water appear to call for the greatest resourcefulness and to offer all the events that lie in the realm of the unexplored. Between near-by streams and lakes there are regular and well-worn ways. By easy grades these follow mostly open ways across rough country. It is likely that even the long, seldom-used, and unmarked ways across miles of watersheds are otter trails that have been used for ages.

Fortunate folks, these otters, to have so much time, and such wild, romantic regions for travel and exploration! After each exciting time that I have watched them I have searched for hours and days trying to see another outfit of otter explorers. But only a few brief glimpses have I had of these wild, picturesque, adventurous bands.

In all kinds of places, in action for fun or food, frolic or fight, the otter ever gives a good account of himself. He appears to fear only man. Though he may be attacked by larger animals this matter is not heavily on his mind, for when he wants to travel he travels; and he does this, too, both in water and on land, and by either day or night. To a remarkable degree he can take care of himself. Though I have not seen him do so, I can readily believe the stories that accredit this twenty-pound weasel-like fellow with killing young bears and deer, and drowning wolves and dogs.

The otter is a fighter. One day I came upon records in the snow far from the water that showed he had walked into a wild-cat ambush. The extensively trampled snow told that the desperate contest had been a long one. The cat was left dead, and the otter had left two pressed and bloody spaces in the snow where he had stopped to dress his wounds on the way to the river. On another occasion the fierceness of the otter was attested to by two coyotes that nearly ran over me in their flight after an assault on the rear guard of a band of overland otter emigrants.

Probably the only animal that enters a beaver pond that gives the beaver any concern is the otter. One morning I had glimpses of a battle in a beaver pond between a large invading otter and numerous home-defense beavers. Most of the fighting was under water, but the pond was roiled and agitated over a long stretch, beginning where the attack commenced and extending to the incoming brook, where the badly wounded otter made his escape.

Both beaver and otter can remain under water for minutes, and during this time put forth their utmost and most effective efforts. Several times during this struggle the contestants came up where they could breathe. Twice when the otter appeared he was at it with one large beaver; another time he was surrounded by several, one or more of which had their teeth in him. When he broke away he was being vigorously mauled by a single beaver, which appeared content to let him go since the otter was bent on escape. It was an achievement for the otter to have held his own against such odds. The beaver is at home in the water, and, moreover, has terrible teeth and is a master in using them.

Though originally a land animal, the otter is now also master of the water. He has webbed feet and a long, sea lion-like neck, which give him the appearance of an animal especially fitted for water travel. He outswims fish and successfully fights the wolf and the beaver in the water. He still has, however, extraordinary ability on land, where he goes long journeys and defends himself against formidable enemies. There are straggling otters which invade the realm of the squirrel by climbing trees.

The otter is a mighty hunter and by stealth and strength kills animals larger than himself. He is also a most successful fisherman and is rated A1 in water. Here his keen eyes, his speed and quickness enable him to outswim and capture the lightning-like trout. Fish is his main article of diet, but this must be fresh—just caught; he is a fish hog. He also eats crawfish, eels, mice, rabbits, and birds. However, he is an epicure and wants only the choicer cuts. He never stores food or returns to finish a partly eaten kill. The more abundant the food supply the less of each catch or kill will he eat.

Food saving is not one of his habits, and conservation has never been one of his practices. Though he hunts and travels mostly at night and alone, he is variable in his habits.

Like all keen-witted animals the otter is ever curious concerning the new or the unusual. He has a good working combination of the cautious and the courageous. One day an otter in passing hurriedly rattled gravel against a discarded sardine can. He gave three or four frightened leaps, then turned to look back. He wondered what it was. With circling, cautious advances he slowly approached and touched the can. It was harmless—and useful. He cuffed it and chased it; he played with it as a kitten plays with a ball. Presently he was joined in the play by another. For several minutes they battered it about, fell upon it, raced for it, and strove to be the first to reach it.

The otter is distributed over North America, but only in Alaska and northern Canada does the population appear to have been crowded. In most areas it might be called sparse. In reduced numbers he still clings to his original territory. That he has extraordinary ability to take care of himself is shown in his avoiding extermination, though he wears a valuable coat of fur. In England he has survived and is still regularly hunted and trapped. Like the fox he is followed with horse and hounds.

Photo. by Enos A. Mills

A Beaver House and Winter Food Supply

Photo. by Enos A. Mills

A Beaver House in the First Snow

Drawing by Will James

Coyote—Clown of the Prairies

Relentless in chase for food and fierce in defense of self or young, yet he is affectionate at home and playful with his fellows. If an old one is trapped or shot the mate seeks the absent one, wandering and occasionally wailing for days. Perhaps they mate for life.

The young, one to four at a birth, are born about the first of May. They are blind for perhaps six weeks. They probably are weaned before they are four months old, but run with the parents for several months. Both parents carry food for the young and both appear devoted to them. As soon as they are allowed to romp or sleep in the sunshine they are under the ever-watchful eye of one of the parents. Woe to the accidental intruder who comes too close. A hawk or owl is warned off with far-reaching snarls and hisses. If high water, landslides, or the near presence of man threatens the youngsters they are carried one at a time to a far-off den.

The hide-and-seek play appears to be the favourite one of the cubs, kits, or pups, as they are variously called. They may hide behind mother, behind a log, or beneath the water.

The otter has a powerful, crushing bite and jaws that hang on like a vise. A tug-of-war between two youngsters, each with teeth set in the opposite ends of a stick, probably is a good kind of preparation for the future. They may singly or sometimes two at a time ride on mother’s back as she swims about low in the water. When they are a little older mother slips from under them, much to their fright and excitement. She thus forces them to learn to swim. Though most habits are likely instinctive they are trained in swimming.

The otter’s two or two-and-a-half foot body is carried on four short legs which have webbed and clawed feet. One weighs from fifteen to twenty-five pounds. Clad in a coat of fur and a sheet of fat he enjoys the icy streams in winter. He also enjoys life in the summer. Though with habits of his own he has ways of the weasel and of the sea otter.

He sends forth a variety of sounds and calls. He whistles a signal or chirps with contentment; he hisses and he bristles up and snarls; he sniffs and gives forth growls of many kinds.

His active brain, eternal alertness, keen senses, and agile body gave him a rare equipment in the struggle for existence. He is in this struggle commonly a conqueror. “Yes,” said a lazy but observing trapper one evening by my campfire, “the otter has more peculiarities than any other animal of the wilderness. Concealed under his one skin are three or four kinds of animals.” And this I found him. Doubtless there are many interesting unrecorded and unseen customs concerning this inscrutable and half-mysterious animal.

Possibly the otter heads the list in highly developed play habit. Sometimes numbers gather in advance to prepare a place on which to play. The otter slide rivals the beaver dam when wild folks’ ways are discussed. It is interesting that this capable animal with a wide range of efficient versatility should be the one that appears to give the most regular attention to play.

CHAPTER VI
THE BIGHORN IN THE SNOW

One winter morning an old mountain sheep came down from the heights, through the deep snow, and called at my cabin. We had already spent a few years trying to get acquainted. Most of these slow advances had been made by myself, but this morning he became a real neighbour, and when I opened the door the Master of the Crags appeared pleased to see me. Although many a shy, big fellow among the wild folks had accepted me as a friend, I had not even hoped to have a close enough meeting with a wild bighorn ram to make an introduction necessary for good form.

I stood for a moment just outside the cabin door. The situation was embarrassing for us both; our advances were confusing, but I finally brought about a meeting of actual contact with bighorn. With slowness of movement I advanced to greet him, talking to him all the while in low tones. Plainly his experiences assured him that I was not dangerous, yet at the same time instinct was demanding that he retreat. For a time I held him through interest and curiosity, but presently he backed off a few steps. Again I slowly advanced and steadily assured him in the universal language—tone—that all was well. Though not alarmed, he moved off at right angles, apparently with the intention of walking around me. I advanced at an angle to intercept him. With this move on my part, he stopped to stare for a moment, then turned and started away.

I started after him at full speed. He, too, speeded, but with snowshoes I easily circled him. He quickly saw the folly of trying to outrun me; and if he did not accept the situation with satisfaction, as I think he did, he certainly took things philosophically. He climbed upon a snow-draped boulder and posed as proudly as a Greek god. Then he stared at me.