W 



CHAPTER IV 



THE COYOTE OF PELICAN POINT 



"E have stopped the plumers," said the 

 game- warden, "and we are holding the 

 market-hunters to something like de- 

 cency ; but there 's a pot-hunter yonder on Pelican 

 Point that I've got to do up or lose my job." 



Pelican Point was the end of a long, narrow pe- 

 ninsula that ran out into the lake, from the oppo- 

 site shore, twelve miles across from us. We were 

 in the Klamath Lake Reservation in southern Ore- 

 gon, one of the greatest wild-bird preserves in the 

 world. 



Over the point, as we drew near, the big white 

 pelicans were winging, and among them, as our boat 

 came up to the rocks, rose a colony of black cormo- 

 rants. The peninsula is chiefly of- volcanic origin, 

 composed of crumbling rock and lava, and ends in 

 well-stratified cliffs at the point. Patches of scraggly 

 sagebrush grew here and there, and out near the 

 cliffs on the sloping lava sides was a field of golden 

 California poppies. 



The gray, dusty ridge in the hot sun, with cliff 

 swallows and cormorants and the great pouched pel- 



