116 BOULDER REVERIES. 



far from barnyard and kindred. Not "cock of 

 the walk" is he, but literally a cock of the woods. 

 Why he travels thus I cannot fathom. He does 

 not have the air of a whipped cock, yet such, 

 perchance, is his standing. If so, having been 

 mastered by one of his fellows and deserted by 

 his harem, he has wandered forth in search of 

 riches and new loves, just as man, his master, 

 for the same cause, has done before him for cen- 

 turies untold. By so doing he is surely tempt- 

 ing fate, for this season foxes in numbers are 

 said to dwell along these woodland slopes, and 

 an old she fox would surely think that the fates 

 were with her did a good fat rooster amble up 

 to her very threshold on a Sunday noon in June- 

 time. 



Some ten minutes after passing from my 

 sight, slowly and sedately feeding as he went, I 

 am again startled by the cock's "shrill clarion" 

 sounded from the crest of the slope above me. 

 Three times in succession it is hurled forth, 

 reverberating and echoing through the woods, a 

 challenge of defiance to all of his kind. It 

 seems louder, wilder, more far reaching than 



