Page:The Cross Pull.pdf/179

 moved across the pond and watched him climb out upon the dam. A porcupine waddled across an open park. Then Flash came into the field of her glasses, creeping stealthily across a meadow, his belly close to the grass. He made a sudden mighty leap, then clawed frantically at the ground. Several times he repeated this strange maneuver.

“Look! Can you see him?” she asked. “What in the world is he doing now?”

“Trying to catch a picket-pin for you,” said Moran.

“Picket-pin?” she inquired. “And who is he—this pin?”

“You’ve seen them,” Moran explained. “Those slender little ground squirrels. They balance on their hind feet, standing motionless until they look like a stake an inch through and six inches long. It’s hard to distinguish them from the stakes men drive to picket their night horses, then move on and leave them behind, sticking up out of the grass. They’re called picket-pin gophers out here from the fact that each newcomer finds it hard to relinquish the notion that he can walk up and tie his horse to one.”

“You tell me so many strange things that I sometimes wonder,” she accused.