PLEASANT OUTINGS 281 



escape. The youngsters looked quite stylish with their 

 quaint little blue caps and neatly fitting knickerbockers. 

 At Bailey's I found my first and only white-crowned 

 sparrow's nest for this trip, although two years before I 

 was fortunate enough to discover several nests in the 

 valleys creeping from the foot of Pike's Peak. At dusk 

 one evening I was walking along the railway below the 

 village, listening to the sweetly pensive trills of the 

 white-crowns in the bushes bordering the creek, when 

 there was a sharp chirp in the willows, and a female 

 white-crown darted over to my side of the stream 

 and slipped quietly into a thick bush on the bank. I 

 stepped down to the spot, arid the pretty madame leaped 

 away, uncovering a well-woven nest containing four 

 white eggs speckled with dark brown. All the while 

 her spouse was trilling with might and main on the 

 other side of the creek, to make believe that there was 

 nothing serious happening, no nest that any one cared 

 anything about. His mate could not disguise her ag- 

 itation by assuming nonchalance, but flitted about in 

 the willows and chirped pitifully. I hurried away to 

 relieve her distress. The cottages on the slopes were 

 gay with tourists enjoying their summer outing, and 

 beautiful Kiowa Lodge, perched on a shoulder of the 

 mountain among embowering pines, glowed with incan- 

 descent lights, while its blithe-hearted guests pursued 

 their chosen kinds of pastime ; but none of them, I ven- 



