Page:The Cross Pull.pdf/174

 Bucks travel much during that season which white men have named Indian Summer and which Indians know as the season of the Short Blue Moon. A bluish haze hangs in the hills; the sage brush on the open slopes between the trees takes on a blue-gray tinge—and the new fall coat of the blacktail blends in with the color scheme.

Each animal has some one sense more highly developed than the rest and on this one supersense he mainly relies.

The antelope of the open plains has only fair nose and ears but wonderful all-seeing eyes. The white hairs on an antelope’s rump are stiff and this white patch bristles, each hair standing out, when the animal is alarmed. The sun flashes on this sparkling white field, and in a few brief moments every antelope within many miles is made aware that there is danger abroad on the plains from these signals flashed from band to band.

Elk, whose range is both in the timber and on broken slopes which seldom afford a clear field of view, find less use for their eyes. Their vision is very good but not exceptional. It is an even break whether nose or ears first warn them of approaching enemies.

The bear lives more in the down-timbered