232 TEXAS AND ARIZONA 



should n't be too much in sight. With the squir- 

 rel and the rabbit, they live mostly in burrows. 



Of certain more highly specialized inhabit- 

 ants of the desert rattlesnakes, Gila monsters, 

 tarantulas, and the like a winter stroller can 

 have little or nothing to relate. They are all 

 here, no doubt, and will disport themselves in 

 their season. No midsummer sun will be too hot 

 for them. For myself, in three weeks' wandering 

 I have seen one lizard, nothing else. And it, too, 

 was shy, legging it for shelter ; running, literally, 

 " like a streak." That was really all that I saw 

 a streak of brown over the gray sand. I was 

 neither a road-runner nor a hawk, and for that 

 time the lizard was more scared than hurt. 



If this shy life of the desert is happy, as I 

 believe it is, after its manner and according to 

 its measure, we can only admire once more the 

 beneficent effect of use and custom. The safest of 

 us are always in danger. Whether we tread the 

 sands of the desert or the shaded paths of some 

 Garden of Eden, our steps all tend to one end, 

 the one event that happeneth alike to all ; and 

 if we, who look before and after, go on our way 

 smiling, why not the humbler and presumably 

 less sensitive people whose homes are under the 

 roots of the creosote bushes ? 



