Page:Rocky Mountain life.djvu/141



Deer-meat at this season of the year is very poor eating, —especially that of the buck, —it being both lean and tough; but, indifferent as it was, we were too hungry to be nice.

Previous to reaching camp I rode along the base of a small mountain, some distance to the right of the main party, in quest of game; there I caught glimpse of the first panther I had yet met with. Jumping from my horse, I thought to give him a passing shot, —but he, neither liking my looks nor the smell of gunpowder, made hasty retreat to his mountain home.

Passing leisurely on, my course led through a large village of prairiedogs, which reminds me of having heretofore neglected a description of these singular animals.

I am at a loss to imagine what it is in the habits or looks of the prairiedog that entitles him to that appellation.

In appearance and size he more approximates a large species of the sciurus family, commonly called the fox-squirrel, than anything I can name. His tail, however, is but an inch and a half long, while his ears and legs are also short;—as a whole, perhaps, he is a trifle larger and more corpulent than the fox-squirrel.

of the same family, the difference in their appearance is so marked, I have thought it proper to observe a nominal distinction, and for that reason, they are called in subsequent pages by terms familiar to the mountaineers.

His "bark" is precisely like the occasional chatterings of that animal, and his color is of a brownish red.

His habits are quite inoffensive and lead him to procure his food from roots and grass. Clumsy in his motions, he seldom ventures far from home — fearful of the numerous enemies that beset him on all sides, both from birds and beasts of prey.

These animals congregate together in large villages, and dig their burrows adjoining each other;—the dirt thrown from them often forming cone-like elevations three or four feet high, in whose tops are the entrances. The latter are nearly of a perpendicular descent for two feet, and then slope away to a great distance under ground.

These villagers locate without regard to the vicinity of water, and it is gravely doubted, by many persons, whether they make the same use of that fluid as other animals;—I have seen large settlements of them in high arid prairies, at a distance of fifteen or twenty miles from either stream or pool of water, and in regions subject to neither rain nor dews.

They are keen of sight and scent, and seemed governed by some code of federative regulations for mutual safety. Their guards are regularly posed at the suburbs of every village, whose duty it is to be continually on the alert and give timely warning of the approach of danger.

This the cautious sentinels discharge by standing erect at the slightest tainture of the air, or startling noise, or strange appearance; and, having ascertained by careful observations its nature and cause, they sound the sharp yelp and chatter of alarm, in a hurried manner, —then, betaking themselves to the watch-towers that protect the entrances to their burrows, from the verge of the steep parapets they again renew their warning notes, when the whilom busy populace, bescattered at brief distances for amusement or food, return with all possible despatch to their ready holes and disappear from view.

The faithful sentinels are last to retreat from their posts, and not unfrequently maintain their ground at the hazard of individual safety.