:::::::::9g: NEAR THE TWIN VOLCAXOS a^:::::::: 



the singularly musical yodel, which the ^lexican Indian 

 uses in attracting- the curiosity of deer and other ani- 

 mals. Once we were carefully stalking a noise — it was 

 too dark to distinguish anything ten feet away — when 

 Benito softly gave the call. For a moment there was 

 silence, then to our surprise an answer came back and 

 there stepped into view an Indian with an old-fashioned 

 huge-bore gun, which he said, in a half-frightened 

 way, he had been just about to fire in our direction, 

 thinking that we were the deer he was after. Thus this 

 yodel of the Mexican serves two purposes. It attracts 

 the attention of the wild animal without startling it, and 

 it also is used to let hunters know whether man or beast 

 is near, thus avoiding the danger of shooting a man 

 by mistake. Occasionally in our tents at night we heard 

 this musical yodel echoing over the trail ! If after a 

 moment there came an answering call, then we knew 

 that man had met man on the lonely mountain trail ; 

 but if to the call no answering cry came, then in the 

 darkness some wild creature stood, every sense on the 

 alert, every muscle held tense, and great wide eyes star- 

 ing out in the night to find the cause of this strangely 

 soft yet penetrating cry. 



It Avas on one of these trips, when Benito was beat- 

 ing a clump of underbrush, sending lizards and birds 

 scurrying out, that three giant goatsuckers sailed out 

 and flapped blindly past. They were whip-poor-wills 

 twice maofnified. We flushed them several times and 



- «4 197 ^ 



