OVER THE MOGOLLON MESA 81 



wounded the homesteader was of the larger 

 species well known throughout the United 

 States. Another skunk, since the above occur- 

 rence, bit a collie dog on the ranch and the dog 

 developed rabies and died. 



In much of the territory through which I 

 passed skunks are a real menace, not, I may 

 say, in the open wilderness, but in the vicinity 

 of old ranch buildings which they infest. I 

 heard of several cases — I should say at least a 

 dozen — where sleeping men had been attacked 

 by them and had later developed rabies and 

 died. The people bitten are almost invariably 

 poor sheep herders or homesteaders, unable to 

 pay their expenses to Chicago or Los Angeles, 

 the nearest points at which Pasteur Institutes 

 are now located, and even if they had the 

 money to meet these expenses they are usually 

 from three to four days' travel from the rail- 

 road when the accident occurs, which with two 

 or three days by train from the nearest railroad 

 station to the institute combines to make so long 

 a delay that treatment is generally ineffective. 



So far as I know, the only regions in the 

 United States where skunks with rabies are 

 found are Arizona, New Mexico, and a section 

 of Texas. The many cases of death from them 

 of which I heard were all within a compara- 



