AN APRIL HIKE 29 



deers shouted from a bare pasture knoll; a 

 sharp-shin hawk, skimming the ground on fierce 

 wing, dashed with murderous intent into a wil- 

 low clump, where a dozen tree sparrows had 

 been trilling their sweet whistle; and back of it 

 all was the sweet-voiced chorus of the Lapland 

 longspurs — a tinkling, fairy melody that hov- 

 ered in the air over almost every field along the 

 way. It was good to tramp, tramp, tramp 

 among it all, to feel really alive and a part of 

 this out-door scheme of things. 



Neighbors of the ground, too, were not ab- 

 sent. On the grassy road-sides, and in every 

 pasture lot, many prairie " gophers " were 

 perked up, and others dodged around spasmodi- 

 cally. In the spring, their coats have a yellow- 

 ish tinge, and the little fellows show more plainly 

 than at any other time. In a remote plot, I dis- 

 turbed another plains dweller, this time, a prairie 

 hare. His white winter coat had not yet all been 

 cast off, though much of it had evidently fallen 

 out. His face, ears, and back were patched 

 with brown, and as he crouched low, and hugged 

 himself tight in his grass form, thus hoping to 

 escape detection, he appeared to be sort of a 

 misfit in the usual clever color-scheme of Na- 



